


Stick Around, Now it May Show

by 2kimi2furious



Category: Ghost of Tsushima (Video Game)
Genre: 30 Day OTP Challenge, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cunnilingus, Drinking Games, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Het, Hurt/Comfort, Jin is drunk and handsy, Misunderstandings, Morning Sex, Past Stillbirth, Romance, Smut, Spooning, Yuna is the big spoon, exit pursued by a bear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:49:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 30
Words: 31,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26237404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/2kimi2furious/pseuds/2kimi2furious
Summary: A collection of drabbles for the 30 day OTP challenge involving Jin Sakai and Yuna. Ratings for each chapter may vary.
Relationships: Implied past Jin/Ryuzo, Jin Sakai & Yuna, Jin Sakai/Yuna
Comments: 272
Kudos: 199





	1. Day 1- Nose Kisses

Yuna awoke in the pre-dawn light to the sound of paper rustling. She sat up and stretched out her limbs, naked flesh prickling in the cool air coming in through the dilapidated walls of the Dawn Refuge. She was alone on the tatami mat, wrapped furs and cloth blankets. She had not started her night that way.

“Jin?” she called out softly, her voice still thick with sleep.

“I’m here,” the answer came from across the room. 

She squinted in the dim light and could just make out the shape of him. Jin was sitting on the floor in front of the low table his swords rested on. A men’s _yukata_ hung loosely from his shoulders to hide his nakedness as he sat rubbing the blade of his _katana_ with _washi_ paper and oil. He looked to have been awake for some time. The hair he’d unfastened when he fell onto the tatami mat the night before with Yuna was pulled back in its usual topknot and his eyes looked alert and focused.

“Are you expecting a fight before the sun comes up?” she asked, a note of soft teasing in her voice. “Can’t that wait until later?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said, not looking up from his work. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”

Yuna frowned. Since she’d known him, Jin had had trouble sleeping. She understood, of course; responsibility weighed heavily on him. She was sure his dreams were haunted by the ghosts of all the friends he’d lost during the fight against the Mongols. Lately, his uncle would have been among those ghosts.

Hugging the blankets tightly across her chest in the chill, Yuna stood and walked over to where Jin was sitting. She knelt next to him, pressing the side of her body against his. She felt him lean into her slightly and wondered if he realized he was doing it.

“You need to rest,” she said, gently. She didn’t just mean that he needed to sleep, although he needed that too. He would run himself ragged mind, body, and soul if he didn’t stop and allow himself time to recover.

“We still have so much left to do,” Jin said, setting his oiling supplies down. His brown eyes were weary and unfathomably sad as he gazed into hers. “There’s no time to rest.”

“Jin,” she said firmly. 

She turned toward him and raised a hand to cup at his cheek. His beard was rough and ragged under her fingers as she traced the line of his jaw. His eyes were set in dark rings and his cheeks had begun to hollow out. He couldn’t keep going at this rate.

“The Ghost may belong to everyone,” she said, looking him in the eye. “But Jin Sakai belongs to me. And I say there  _ is _ time.”

“Yuna,” he began to protest, but she wasn’t going to allow him to argue with her.

She let the blanket slip from her shoulders as she leaned forward, pulling him to her body into an embrace. The yukata he’d been wearing was a thin summer garment and not enough to keep him warm in the morning chill. She could feel how cold he was through the fabric. If he wasn’t careful, he’d catch his death on top of everything else.

“Come lay with me,” she said, pulling him up and gathering the blankets about her bare waist. “Just for a little while longer.”

Jin allowed himself to be led back to the tatami mat and shrugged off the  _ yukata _ . Yuna joined him, throwing the blankets over their bodies, trapping them both in a pocket of warmth as she straddled him. They made love, slow and languid at first, picking up speed and reaching their peaks just as the sun came up and filled the hut with warm, golden light.

Jin was still panting when Yuna slipped off of him. His eyes were heavy and he looked like he was about to drift off right there.  _ Good _ , she thought as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled the blankets up to their chins. It would do him well to sleep, even if only for a little while.

She pressed a soft kiss to his lips and then, on a whim, placed one small peck to his nose. Jin murmured sleepily, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling Yuna to him, burying his nose into her neck as he did so. His breathing slowed to an even pace and Yuna knew he’d finally managed to fall asleep. 


	2. Day 2- Reunion Hug

_No_ , she thinks as she rushes toward the dark spot in the sand. _It can’t be_.

But even as she crouches down to pick it up, Yuna knows that she is looking at Jin’s mask. She would recognize her brother’s craftsmanship anywhere. Miraculously, the mask is unbroken, but Jin is nowhere to be found. Her breath catches in her throat and the sand below her feet threatens to swallow her up. _Not you too, Jin_.

Her eyes begin to sting and she feels her knees start to give when she hears splashing coming from the shore. Through blurred vision, she sees a ghost-- _The_ Ghost-- stumbling toward her on the beach. Without thinking, she rushes toward him, catching Jin in her arms just as he falls forward.

She feels everything at once: elation at seeing him alive, fear at knowing he’s hurt, sickness at the thought of his grief, and anger at him for making her worry. She wants to hit him. She wants to scream at him. She wants to kiss him. She wants to do all three in rapid succession. But instead, she holds him, if only for a brief moment. He looks at her and she looks back at him. There is so much she wants to say.

“This belongs to you,” she finally manages. 

He stumbles back for a second, looking down at the mask in her hand with glazed-over eyes. It takes him a while to see it, but he does see it and takes it from her. Then he’s on her again, arm thrown across her shoulder as he redistributes his weight. He can hardly walk on his own and Yuna is more than happy to lead him back to one of the empty houses in Port Izumi. The fighting has died down by that point and Yuna knows it is a safe place for them to rest until he has enough strength to make it back to Jogaku Temple.

The second they are behind closed doors, the last of Jin’s strength gives out and he almost topples Yuna down to the ground with him. She braces herself at the last minute and gently lowers him to the floor. 

“Yuna,” he rasps out. But she softly hushes him.

“Save your strength,” she says gently, hoping he doesn’t notice the tremor in her voice.

She needs to see if he is wounded. He doesn’t appear to be bleeding anywhere, but she won’t be able to tell until he’s out of his armor.

With skillful fingers, she begins to untie the silk cords holding his armor together. He groans as she moves his body around, taking it apart bit by bit until he is down to his _shitagi_ and _fundoshi_ . Jin watches her as she works and Yuna tries not to focus on it. There are no bloodstains on his underclothes and Yuna makes a mental note to leave an offering to the _kami_ for that kindness.

She hesitates, fingers hovering over the ties of his shirt before deciding to open his _shitagi_ too. Dark, ugly bruises have already begun to bloom across his stomach and chest. She gingerly feels for any broken bones and listens to his breath for any troubling sounds in his lungs. Against all odds, though, his wounds don’t seem life threatening.

That’s when something breaks in her. Before she even realizes she’s doing it, she’s crying.

“Jin, you _bastard_ ,” she says. “I thought I had lost you too.”

Jin weakly lifts his arm to find one of her hands. His rough fingers interlace with hers and squeeze softly. Yuna looks down at him and sees that his eyes are also shining with tears.

She settles down on the floor next to him, cradling him gently in her arms. He smells like sweat, salt, smoke, and death, but Yuna doesn’t care. She curls herself around him like she’s afraid to let go, as if he’s going to slip away in the night like the ghost everyone thinks he is. 

She’ll be strong for the both of them when the morning comes. She’ll give him hell for making her worry like this. But for now, all she can do is hold him and thank the _kami_ that he came back to her alive and in one piece.


	3. Day 3- Spooning for Warmth

“We need to find shelter!” Yuna yelled, barely audible over the howling wind.

Jin frowned. This stretch of the road was barren of any nearby villages or strongholds. It was one of the reasons they’d chosen to travel it. They had not expected the blizzard to spring up around them so suddenly. 

“The closest hut is miles back,” Jin shouted back. “We’ll never make it!”

“Then we’ll have to find something else,” Yuna called back. 

She dismounted and walked her mare over to Jin.

“Stay here,” she said, handing him the reins. “I think there is a cave nearby.”

Jin wanted to tell her to stay, that she could easily get lost in this storm, but he kept silent. Yuna would do what she wanted to do. And if anyone could find shelter in this frozen white hellscape, it would be her.

She disappeared into the storm and Jin dismounted, leading both horses to the side of the road. He rummaged in their packs, finding blankets to throw over their backs while they waited for Yuna to return. He didn’t know how long the horses could stand to be in the snow before they would start to suffer ill effects from the cold. Fortunately, he didn’t have to find out.

“This way,” Yuna said, reappearing at his side. “It isn’t far.”

They left the road, walking carefully through the forest so the horses wouldn’t stumble. The snow wasn’t as bad with the trees to shield them from the worst of it, but it was still slow-going. The cave Yuna found didn’t look like much from the outside, but was surprisingly roomy once they’d led the horses inside.

“How did you know about this place?” he asked.

“A thief’s secret,” she answered with a wry smile. 

They set to work making camp for the night. There wasn’t much dry kindling to be found and the fire they managed to build was small and weak. Jin knew it would not last the night. But they could at least have warmth for a little while. 

When the horses were brushed down, fed, and watered, Jin and Yuna sat down to a modest meal of rice boiled in snowmelt. The firelight cast a dim light in the cave which only seemed to make the shadows appear darker than they were. The snow raged on in a blinding white blaze outside and Jin wondered if they would end up being snowed in over night.

“We need to be mindful of the cold,” Yuna said quietly. “Otherwise the  _ Yuki-Onna _ might pay us a visit.”

“I didn’t take you to be someone who believed in the old folktales,” Jin said, raising an eyebrow.

“Oh, she’s real enough,” Yuna replied, poking at the fire. “She creeps in on nights like this to steal the life from you while you lay asleep. The only thing she leaves is your body, blue-lipped and frozen solid.”

In spite of the fire, Jin shivered.

“It’s the cold that does it,” he said. “Not a spirit.”

“Either way,” Yuna said, looking up at him with dark eyes. “The results are the same. If our fire dies in the night, and it will, they’ll find our bodies blackened with frost when the snow melts.”

“How do you suggest we keep this  _ Yuki-Onna _ at bay, then?” he asked.

Yuna smiled at him in the firelight, a mischievous glint in her eyes. Jin felt his stomach flutter inappropriately. This was a life or death situation. There was no time for  _ that _ kind of excitement.

“She can’t abide the heat,” Yuna said suggestively. “So we’ll have to make our own.”

She crawled around the fire until she was at Jin’s side. She cupped one of his hands in hers, blowing on it to get the warmth back in his fingers. Her lips brushed his fingertips just a tad too long for propriety and she gave Jin a _look_. Maybe there was time for that kind of excitement after all.

“If you wanted to seduce me, you didn’t have to go through all this trouble with the storm,” he said.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jin,” Yuna said, feigning innocence as she continued to rub his hands in hers. “I’m just trying to survive the night.”

Jin affixed her with a skeptical stare and she climbed into his lap.

“It isn’t my fault that the best way to keep warm in the cold is also conducive to other activities.”

“Yuna,” he said, his voice a low growl in the back of his throat. His hands found her waist of their own accord even as she wrapped her arms around his neck. She grinned and leaned in for a kiss. 

Her face was still cold, but her mouth was hot and sent its heat coursing through his body. They pawed at each other’s clothes, making quick work of removing them and Jin laid Yuna on top of them so she wouldn’t be on the cold hard ground. Then he slipped a hand between her legs and buried his face into her neck. He bit at her skin, smiling at the noise she made in his ear.

“Jin, your fingers are freezing,” she gasped. 

“They’ll warm up soon enough,” he said, moving up to nip at her jaw. 

She was hot and wet and his fingers moved deftly despite their stiffness. Yuna clung to him, digging her fingers into his back as he drove her over the edge. She came with a cry and Jin pulled back a little to look at her. Her golden skin was flush with pleasure and it made his cock ache to see it.

She lay there panting with hooded eyes and Jin leaned down to capture her mouth in a heated kiss. Then he rolled her over on her side and laid down next to her, pressing his chest to her back. He positioned himself at her entrance and pushed into her from behind. Jin wrapped an arm around her chest as he rocked into her. He enveloped her, alternately kissing and biting at her shoulder as she made soft sounds with every thrust. The line where their bodies met gave off more heat than any fire ever could.

His peak took him by surprise. With a gasp, Jin spilled into her, pressing himself tightly against her back. He’d meant to last longer. Jin stayed in her for a bit, catching his breath before pulling out with a hiss. Then he rolled onto his back and closed his eyes, waiting for the world to stop spinning.

He could feel Yuna stirring beside him and when he opened his eyes again, he could see her rummaging through the packs by the horses. The fire was nothing more than ember at that point and Jin felt his flesh prickle in the cold. He wanted Yuna to return and bring the warmth back with her.

She found what she was looking for with a sound of triumph. It was an old horse blanket, tattered and musty, but large enough for the two of them to lay under if they squeezed together tightly. Yuna wrapped it around her shoulders like a cape before coming back to lay near Jin.

His body was boneless as she rolled him over onto his side. Yuna pressed her chest to Jin’s back, a mirror image of how they’d made love only moments before. She tossed the blanket over his shoulder and he clutched it against his chest. 

“If we stay like this all night,” Yuna whispered into his ear. “We’ll be safe from her. From the  _ Yuki-Onna _ .”

Their bodies were still radiating warmth and the blanket trapped the heat there with them. In spite of the cold raging around them, Jin was comfortable. More than comfortable. Happy.

“I’m trusting you to protect me from her,” Jin replied. 

“If she lays a hand on you, I’ll open her throat,” Yuna said, wrapping her arms around his torso possessively. She placed a small kiss on the back of his shoulder and buried her face into it.

“If anyone could kill a spirit it would be you,” Jin chuckled.

“She can find another man to take tonight,” Yuna answered, voice muffled against his skin. “This one is mine.”


	4. Day 4- Walking Hand in Hand

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a slight mention of abortifacients in this chapter if you would like to skip it.

Jin had promised Yuna that he would try to get more rest, and for the most part, he stuck to that promise. But on nights like this, when the moon was so new that it didn’t even appear as a sliver behind the clouds, he couldn’t sleep. The darkness was too much. Every shadow was the face of someone he’d lost. Every bump in the night was one of the  _ shogun _ ’s men coming for his head. Try as he might, he couldn’t relax and drift off. Not even with Yuna’s soft, rhythmic breathing in his ear.

In the corner of the hut, Jin lit a small oil lamp. The flame was low, not bright enough to wake Yuna as she slept on the far side of the room. But it was enough to drive away the shadows for a while. Not for the first time, Jin reflected on the events in his life that led him to this moment. It was all necessary, of course, and he would do everything again if given another chance. His actions had saved the lives of so many people and that was something to be proud of. But life as a hunted man was a burden he wouldn’t have wished on anyone except Khotun Khan. And the Khan was dead.

Jin thought about what life would have been like if the Mongols hadn’t come, if he hadn’t broken the  _ samurai _ code. If his uncle was still alive. He would have been Jin Shimura at this point, the  _ jito _ ’s heir and lord of a castle. There would have been talk of marriage and he would have had his pick of any lord’s daughter in all of Japan. Instead, he was in a drafty safehouse, sharing dirty blankets with a common thief.

But this common thief was more desirable to him than the most elegant of the  _ samurai _ daughters. Yuna was rough around the edges,true, her features coarse and broad compared to the delicate fragility of a noblewoman. Jin wouldn’t call her beautiful in the traditional sense, but she was striking, and one look from her could bring him to his knees. He would pick her every time over any other woman in the world.

Yuna had done so much for him. He was keenly aware that he would not be alive to ruminate on these thoughts if not for her. True, she only helped him at first in order to escape Tsushima with her brother, but she stayed to fight even after Taka was gone. Jin fully expected her to leave once the one person tying her to this place was dead, but she surprised him. She was always surprising him.

If the world they lived in was fair, Jin would have his titles reinstated. He would take his uncle’s place as  _ jito _ and be free to marry whomever he chose. Yuna would prickle at the idea at first, but he would make her his wife. It would scandalize the  _ shogun _ ’s  _ bakufu _ in Kamakura, but he would do it anyway.

Jin would not keep Yuna constrained to the house like any other noblewoman. She knew the real people of Tsushima, and Jin would take her advice on how best to serve the people he ruled. The people would love her the way he loved her. She would want for nothing.

In time, she would give him strong sons and brilliant daughters to secure the legacy of Clan Sakai. And they would grow old together, spending their twilight years walking through the gardens of their estate hand-in-hand as their grandchildren played around them. If the world was fair, this would all come to pass.

But the world was not fair.

Jin would be on the run the rest of his life, and because Yuna was known to the  _ samurai _ , she would be too. Jin would inherit no lands or titles. The only places they could call home were wherever they managed to lay their heads for the night.

They would never marry. If a child quickened in her womb, Yuna would drink the tea that made her monthly blood come. Jin hated thinking of it, but he hated the idea of bringing a child into this life even more. It was the lesser of two evils in his mind. 

They would most likely live short, hard lives and die slow, ugly deaths. The legend of The Ghost would live on as their bodies rotted into nothingness. Over time, their names and faces would fade from memory. The only legacy they would leave behind would be a story told in hushed whispers under the cover of darkness. 

There would be no walks through stately gardens. No growing old with each other. There would be nothing more than what they had now. Jin knew they were living on borrowed time and that it was foolish to hope for more.

Yuna stirred in her sleep, pulling Jin out of his reverie. Thinking his light had woken her up, Jin quickly snuffed out the lamp and crawled back to her side. It took his eyes a while to adjust in the darkness, but when they did, he could see she hadn’t woken up after all.

He didn’t go back to his corner, however. He stayed beside her, watching as her chest rose and fell with the steady rhythm of her breath. A stray lock of hair fell into her face and he gently brushed it aside. In her sleep, Yuna instinctively nuzzled into his hand.

_ I would die a thousand deaths for this woman _ , he thought.  _ And I would do it gladly _ .

He would be hunted until the end of his days, but at least Yuna would be by his side. Death came for everyone eventually. He might not have long with her, but at least he had her for now. They would walk toward death together, hand-in-hand until they couldn’t hold onto each other any longer. And that would be enough for Jin.


	5. Day 5- Late Night Talks

Kenji’s latest batch of sake tasted like dog piss. 

“And you know what dog piss tastes like, how?” Yuna asked, her mouth set in a crooked grin as she sipped from her gourd.

“I don’t,” Jin answered. “But it must be something like this.”

Yuna snorted.

“Believe it or not, this is one of Kenji’s better brews.”

Despite his protestations about the taste, Jin drank deeply from his own gourd. Dog piss sake was better than no sake at all.

It was late. The village slept around them and they should have been abed as well. But it was autumn and the moon was full, bright and beautiful. Jin didn’t want to waste it; there was so little beauty left in his world. Yuna had laughed at the idea of celebrating  _ tsukimi  _ with so much going on around them, but she eventually gave in to his request. The two of them pillaged Kenji’s sake cart before finding a secluded veranda to sit on and drink.

“So tell me,” Yuna said. “How does a  _ samurai _ celebrate  _ tsukimi _ ? I am assuming there is poetry involved. I hope you don’t expect me to write  _ haiku  _ with you.”

“ _ Tanka _ is more traditional,” Jin quipped. “But I was never as good with that style of poetry, much to the dismay of my uncle.”

There was a gentle sadness in Jin’s voice despite his efforts to make merry. Lord Shimura’s death was still an open wound, not yet healed over by time. Yuna gave him a soft look and Jin looked away from her in shame. He wasn’t the only one who had lost the last of his family. It would be selfish to pretend her grief was less important than his.

The moment passed, however. Jin would not let himself sink into despair. Not tonight.

“When I was a boy, we would take to the water,” Jin continued. “All the  _ samurai _ families would gather on large barges to float all night and celebrate the harvest moon. Things could get quite rowdy.”

Yuna rolled her eyes.

“Leave it to the  _ samurai _ to come up with such foolishness,” she said.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Jin laughed.

Yuna grinned, watching him over the mouth of her sake gourd.

“It’s good to see you smiling,” she said. “You look like a different man when you do.”

Jin felt heat rush to his cheeks. He hoped that, if Yuna could see it in the darkness, she would think it was because of the sake.

“The smiles used to come easier,” he admitted. “I haven’t had much to smile about lately.”

“Mmm,” Yuna agreed, stretching out on the veranda. She lay on her side, propping her head up with her elbow. With her free hand, she took another drink of sake and turned her eyes up toward the moon. “I suppose none of us have.”

Jin dropped his eyes to his lap, gazing into the sake gourd held there. He had meant to bring levity to the night, and he seemed to be failing at it. Just like he’d failed his uncle. 

“Stop that,” Yuna said. 

When he looked back up at her, she was watching him. She looked mildly annoyed.

“You’re frowning again,” she said. 

“I don’t mean to.”

“But you  _ are _ .”

She pushed herself back to an upright position and turned to face him, leaning against one of the veranda’s posts. 

“You need to stop blaming yourself for everything that happened, Jin,” she said.

Jin didn’t feign ignorance. Yuna could read him better than anyone he’d ever known. He knew what she was talking about.

“That is easier said than done,” he replied, drinking the last of the sake in his gourd.

“I know,” she said. “But you have to try.”

“I  _ am _ trying, Yuna,” he answered impatiently. He didn’t want to fight with her about this. He didn’t want to fight with her at all.

She threw a skeptical glance his way, but didn’t press the subject further.

“I worry about you,” she said quietly, gazing back up at the moon. 

“You don’t have to.”

“Someone has to,” Yuna replied.

Jin set his empty sake gourd down and was silent for a while, withdrawing into himself. He had completely botched this  _ tsukimi _ celebration. Yuna set her own gourd down and, after a moment of hesitation, crawled over to sit beside him.

“I ruined our party, didn’t I?” she asked.

“No,” Jin replied sullenly. 

“Don’t try to spare my feelings,” she said. “I put you in a foul mood and ruined the celebration.”

Jin abruptly stood, walking over to where their cache of stolen sake was. They had gone through all but one gourd. He didn’t realize they’d drunk so much. He grabbed it anyway and turned to walk back to his seat, only to find Yuna standing behind him.

“There’s one left,” he said awkwardly, holding up the gourd. 

Yuna smiled and took the gourd from him. Then with her other hand, she grabbed his.

“Come, Jin,” she said, leading him back to their spot. “You wanted to celebrate tonight. Well, the night isn’t over yet. The moon is still high and I want to hear about the samurai and their  _ tsukimi _ boats.”

They sat huddled together, sharing the last of the sake until it was gone. Then they sat longer. Jin spoke of the lively festivals of his youth, telling stories about the trouble he got into and the sights he’d seen. He talked so long that he’d forgotten he’d been in a foul mood at all.

“That sounds wonderful,” Yuna said, leaning her head against his shoulder.

“I would take you to see it if I could.”

“I wouldn’t go,” Yuna said with a laugh. “It would scandalize all the lords and ladies of Tsushima.”

“Maybe they deserve to be scandalized,” Jin said. 

Yuna looked at him, her eyes dancing in the moonlight and Jin couldn’t help himself. He brought his hand to her the side of her face, rubbing his thumb reverently against her cheek before leaning in to kiss her.

“I have been waiting for you to do that since we left Toyotama,” she said when they broke apart. Then she grabbed the collar of his  _ yukata _ and pulled him in for a deeper kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tsukimi- An autumn moon-viewing festival.
> 
> Tanka- A style of poetry written in one line with 31 syllables total.


	6. Day 6- Getting Caught Making Out

They steal moments together in the dark.

Too many people need too many things from Jin. He knows his duties are immense and he can’t afford any distraction, not even for a moment. But he also knows that he won’t be able to focus on thoseduties until Yuna stops looking at him like that.

It happens the first time when Yuna accidentally caught him with his  _ hakama  _ down at a hot spring. He is mortified for a moment, the color rushing to his cheeks and Yuna affixes him with a wolfish grin before riding off. Later that night, she sneaks up on him in a dark corner of a temple. Jin tries to apologize but she cuts him off by pressing her body and lips to his. She kisses him long enough to get his blood running hot before slipping away, leaving him alone and frustrated.

She makes a game of it. They meet each other in abandoned shacks, shady copses of trees, and darkened temples. Each time she stays with him a little longer, her hands exploring just a little further. But every time, she pulls away at the last moment. Jin hasn’t taken himself in his hand this many times since he was in his teens and he  _ hates  _ it. Yuna  _ knows  _ he’s doing it, too, and the smug look on her face makes it all the worse.

They are at one of the survivor camps, eating their evening meal. Jin is trying to listen to whatever Kenji is rambling about, but Yuna’s eyeing him from across the fire and it’s all Jin can focus on. He knows he shouldn’t get up to follow her when she abruptly stands and wanders off into the dark. He knows he’s not going to get the release he wants from her. But he knows he isn’t going to stop thinking about it unless he finds out for sure.

He waits for a minute or two so it won’t look suspicious before hurriedly finishing his meal and excusing himself. He finds Yuna laying in the pampas grass and he falls on her immediately. 

“You,” he says gruffly between kisses. “Are the worst.”

Yuna laughs and then gasps as he bites at her neck.

“You like it,” she says. “Or you wouldn’t keep following me.”

Jin slips a hand in the collar of her yukata, finding her breast and squeezing. He rolls a nipple between his fingers, perhaps a little too hard and Yuna has to muffle a yelp with her fist. He trails kisses down her neck and chest until he manages to capture the nipple in his mouth and Yuna bucks up against him. He wonders how far she’ll let him get this time.

She rolls her hips against his, using the momentum to roll him on his back so that she is hovering over him. She’s straddling his hips and grinds down against the hardness between his legs which elicits a keening noise at the back of Jin’s throat.

“Enough of this, Yuna,” he growls. “You’re driving me mad.”

“That’s the point, Lord Sakai,” she teases, voice husky and dark.

He grabs at the back of her neck and pulls her to him in a kiss. His free hand runs up her waist and across her back and he involuntarily cants his hips against hers.

“I want you to beg for it,” she whispers.

Begging is beneath him, but he isn’t too proud to do it.

“I need you, Yuna” he says. “Please.”

Yuna smiles down at him and starts to pull at the ties of her  _ yukata _ . In a moment, she has shrugged it off and is pulling at the ties of Jin’s robes. They are nearly naked when they hear a strangled gasp. Jin instinctively reaches for a blade that’s not there when he hears a familiar voice.

“My lord, I’m so sorry,” Kenji says, sounding panicked. “I heard a noise and thought something had happened to you.”

Jin is thankful that he is weaponless because he might have actually killed Kenji right then and there. Yuna is beside him clutching her  _ yukata  _ to her chest and laughing so hard she might fall over.

“Go away,” Jin ordered, his voice dangerously low. “Now.”

Kenji’s eyes grow about three sizes wider before he scrambles off into the darkness. Jin turns back to Yuna, only to see that she’s already shrugging her  _ yukata  _ back on. Jin makes a noise of protest and Yuna laughs again.

You will have to wait for another night, Lord Sakai,” she says, knotting the sash at her waist. Then she leans over and gives him another teasing kiss. “But I promise to make it worth your while.”

Jin can’t help the frustrated groan that escapes him as she disappears into the night with a lilting laugh


	7. Day 7- Surprises

Jin had been behaving oddly for the better part of a month and Yuna was rapidly losing patience with him. Every time they arrived at Jogaku Temple, Jin would slink off without her. She would take her eyes off of him only for a moment, but that was all it took. He would be gone and he would stay gone for hours. Later, he would arrive in time for the evening meal, but he would not tell her where he had been or what he was doing.

It was infuriating.

She tried to tell herself it was none of her business. Yuna knew Jin had many different responsibilities pulling him in many different directions. There were many times that Jin was off saving villagers and harrying Mongol troops and Yuna hadn’t been privy to those details. But that was before she started sharing his  _ futon _ . Now Jin told her everything. Everything except what he was doing in Jogaku.

They were almost to Jogaku now. As they rode together, Yuna kept shooting glances toward Jin who was either extremely dense or purposefully ignoring her. So, he was going to do it again, wasn’t he? Disappear on her and then remain tight-lipped for the rest of the night. 

As they passed through the entrance of the temple, it hit her. There was someone else. There had to be. That was the only reason he would not tell her what he was off doing whenever they came here. There was some woman (or man, if the rumors she’d heard about Jin and Ryuzo were true) that he was seeing behind her back here in Jogaku. Yuna was  _ furious _ .

She dismounted Naoki and led her to the nearby stables, not even waiting for Jin and Kaze to catch up. 

“Yuna,” Jin called out. “Wait!”

“Don’t you have business to attend to,  _ Lord Sakai _ ?” she answered shortly, turning to look at him. “We are in Jogaku, after all.”

She saw the color rise in Jin’s cheeks and knew she’d caught him. Stupid  _ samurai  _ bastard.

He opened his mouth, perhaps to protest or attempt to explain, but Yuna cut him off.

“Go see whoever it is here that you came to see,” she said. “But don’t expect me to be waiting to fall into bed with you whenever you get back.”

She would continue to fight and travel with The Ghost. Freeing Tsushima was too important of a goal to let their romantic squabbles get in the way of that. But Yuna didn’t have to be nice about it. Not if Jin was going to fuck around behind her back.

She turned on her heel and ran off before Jin could say anything else. She was not in the mood to hear any of his excuses or explanations. Jin didn’t attempt to follow her, which was a smart move on his part. Until she had time to cool off, Yuna wasn’t sure what she’d do or say to him.

Yuna spent her afternoon with her bow. Shortly after leaving JIn, she stopped at the trapper to inspect his wares and traded a few animal hides for some heavy arrows. Then she found a secluded spot in the temple to set up targets and shot her bow until her fingers were numb. Then she shot some more.

Jin found her at sundown. She saw him out of the corner of her eye, slinking shyly toward her, hands behind his back.  _ Let him be ashamed _ , she thought, as she let loose another arrow in the dying light.  _ He deserves it. _

He stood to the side, waiting patiently until Yuna emptied her quiver into the target.

“Sensei Ishikawa would be impressed,” he said quietly.

Yuna did not dignify him with a response. He was trying to smooth things over with her and she could see right through him. She would not let him off as easily as that. Without even sparing him a glance, Yuna stalked over to her target and began methodically putting away her arrows.

“Have you eaten yet?” Jin tried again.

“No,” she replied, still not sparing him a glance. 

“The monks are serving rice porridge and pickled vegetables,” Jin said. “But I managed to find us some fish as well.”

Yuna stayed silent as she put the last of her arrows away and slipped her quiver onto her back. She finally turned to Jin and fixed him with a hard stare. She could almost see him visibly shrink back.

“Yuna,” he said. “I can see that you’re angry.”

Yuna felt her rage flare up inside of her, but still she said nothing.

“I don’t know what you think I’ve been doing here,” he continued. “But I promise it isn’t as bad as whatever you think it is.”

“Why would you keep it from me, then?” Yuna retorted hotly. “What am I to think when you keep secrets?”

Jin looked chastened, but she still pressed on.

“If there is someone else, you should have just told me,” she said. “But sneaking around behind my back, right under my nose? I didn’t take you for a coward.”

Yuna could feel her eyes start to sting. But she wouldn’t cry. Not in front of Jin. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction.

Jin’s eyebrows shot up in surprise.

“Is that what you… Oh  _ Yuna _ ,” he said, rushing forward to her. He tried to place his hands on her shoulders, but she pushed him away.

“Don’t touch me,” she said.

But he came at her again, gripping her shoulders and looking into her eyes.

“I would never,” he said. “ _ Never _ dishonor you this way. Nor anyway at all.”

Yuna knew how men were. She knew they would say anything when confronted with their own misdoings, and she knew not to trust them when they got like this. But there was such conviction in his voice that, against her better judgment, Yuna started to believe him. She stopped struggling and let him envelope her in his arms.

“Yuna, you are the only family I have,” he said. “More than family. I told you once that I would give my life for yours, and I meant it. If you asked me to follow you into the mouth of hell itself, I would do so gladly and without hesitation.”

Yuna couldn’t blink away her tears at this point. She hated for Jin to see them, but she couldn’t help it. He moved one of his hands from her shoulder and used the pad of his thumb to wipe away a trickle running down her cheek.

“There is no one in all of Japan… In all of the world that I would choose over you,” he said. “I  _ love  _ you.”

“Then why the secrets?” Yuna asked, voice shaking.

“I wanted it to be a surprise,” he said. 

Yuna furrowed her brow in confusion and Jin took her hand and led her gently to a bundle of cloth he’d left near the wall.

“I’ve been collecting materials for it for a while now,” he said. “Jogaku’s master smith has been working on it himself. I wanted it to be perfect.”

He untied the cord holding the cloth together, revealing the sword it had been wrapped around. Yuna’s breath caught in her throat. 

The scabbard was a deep indigo, the color of night. Gold leaf had been pressed into it in the shape of cosmic dust and stars. The blade guard was matching gold in the shape of an elongated pentagon, like the short end of a house. The grip was swirled silk and leather, a lighter contrast to the scabbard, with gold leaf pressed into it as well. 

There was a matching  _ tanto  _ that Jin unsheathed and handed to her, grip first. She took it from him and examined the blade. Steel folded in on itself hundreds of times and wickedly sharp. These were blades for a  _ samurai _ . Yuna was confused.

“Your sword has seen better days,” Jin said. “I wanted you to have a new one. Something better.”

“Jin,” she said, her voice a whisper. “This is too much. I can’t accept this.”

She tried to hand the  _ tanto  _ back to him, but he wouldn’t take it.

“You can,” he said, pressing it back into her hands. “After all the trouble I put you through trying to keep it a surprise, you deserve it.”

Yuna gave a half-sob laugh. She sheathed the tanto and looked back up at Jin. His face was soft in the evening shadows.

“They’re beautiful,” she said.

“And deadly,” he replied. “Like you.”

She sniffed and wiped at her eyes. She felt foolish for doubting Jin even for a second.

“Next time, just tell me what you are doing,” she said. “I don’t know that I can handle another surprise from you.”

Jin laughed, his bright white teeth flashing for a moment.

“I think I can handle that,” he said. He pulled her close to him in a quick embrace, placing a kiss at her temple. “Now come. It is time to eat.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Yuna's horse is named Naoki, a nod to danceswithronin's wonderful Orphans fic. Please go read it!!!!  
> 2\. The sword Jin gives Yuna is the Midnight Hanabi sword kit. It's my favorite sword in the game and I just really wanted Yuna to have it.


	8. Day 8- Can't Keep Their Hands Off Each Other (In Public)

“Jin, someone will see,” Yuna laughed even as she pushed him away.

“Let them watch,” he said, voice heady and hot against her skin. “I don’t care.”

Yuna could smell the  _ sake  _ on Jin’s breath and found that she didn’t hate it. She let him continue to kiss at her jawline for a moment longer before swatting him away again. He pulled his face back, but his hands remained pawing at her waist.

“You’ll feel differently come morning when you find out you’ve scandalized your precious  _ sensei _ ,” she replied.

“Ishikawa?”

“Who else?” she continued. “The man is wound up tighter than his bow string. Could you imagine the fit he would throw if he caught us together?”

Yuna made her voice low and gruff. She twisted her face into an exaggerated frown and said “Do not sully yourself with that woman, Sakai. You must save yourself and remain pure for your bow.”

The drink had loosened Jin up a great deal. Instead of frowning at her and chastising her for not showing the old  _ samurai  _ respect, he brought a hand to his mouth to stifle the sound that burst from it. She tried to hush him, but even she couldn’t keep a straight face.

“Sensei Ishikawa can go to hell,” Jin said when he finally got himself under control. 

“That’s not very kind of you to say,” Yuna teased.

“Perhaps you are a bad influence on me,” he said.

“ _ You’re _ the one trying to get into my  _ yukata _ ,” she said. “I’m keeping  _ my  _ hands to myself.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” he said huskily. 

He leaned forward to kiss at her throat and Yuna let him do it. He slipped a hand in the collar of her  _ yukata  _ and she let him do that too. His hands were rough and calloused, but surprisingly gentle as he squeezed at her breasts and rubbed at her nipples. Jin’s beard and fluttering lips tickled her neck and she shivered into his touch.

“And you say  _ I’m  _ the bad influence,” she said, breathless.

Jin fixed her with a wolfish grin and loosened the collar of her  _ yukata  _ to expose a breast. He lowered his mouth to its brown nipple and swirled his tongue around it. When it hardened, he bit down on it, causing Yuna to gasp. This was a dangerous game they were playing. Their fire was on the outskirts of the village, but there were still people milling about and there was a chance someone might catch them. Yuna didn’t mind the risk, but she knew that if Jin were sober, he might object.

“Behave yourself, Jin,” she said. 

And she meant to shove him off of her, she truly did, but he chose that moment to slip his hand under the waistband of her  _ monpe _ . He knew her body well enough now to know exactly how and where to move his fingers to get her to stop talking. Her hand involuntarily went to his hair, clutching her fingers into his topknot as he stroked between her legs and mouthed at her breast. 

“I don’t care who sees us,” Jin said, voice heavy with desire as he pulled away from her chest. “I want you now.”

She could feel how badly he wanted her. His cock was pressed up against her leg, hard and ready.

“I won’t let you fuck me out here,” she said hoarsely. 

Jin slipped one of his fingers inside of her and said “I think you want me to.”

“I do,” she nodded. “But you’ll hate me in the morning if I let you.”

“I could never hate you,” he said. And there was such a soft yearning in his voice that Yuna almost gave in.

Instead, she began to rub along the length of him through the fabric of his  _ hakama _ . She could feel him smile into her neck as he pressed himself into her hand. She squeezed him, enjoying the soft moan it elicited. Then she followed his lead and slipped her hands under his waistband.

Anyone who happened to walk by would have only thought they were huddling together for warmth at first glance. They might see the color rising in their cheeks and think it was a combination of the heat from the fire and the empty sake gourds around them. But they would be hard-pressed to mistake the moans for anything other than what they were.

Yuna twisted her wrist as she stroked him, just like she knew he liked, and she was rewarded with his hips involuntarily bucking into her fist.. Jin whispered filthy things into her ear as his fingers edged her closer and closer to release. She had to bite down on her free hand to stifle the noise she made when she came. 

Jin slipped his hands from out of her  _ monpe  _ and into his  _ hakama _ . He wrapped his hand around Yuna’s and guided her strokes until he finished, leaving both of their hands a hot, sticky mess. Jin leaned against the wall, eyes closed, a very satisfied smirk on his face. Yuna wiped her hand on his robes and he didn’t have the energy to stop her from doing it.

“You’d better not fall asleep out here,” Yuna said, prodding him in the shoulder to get him to open his eyes. “I’d hate to have to explain to everyone how you froze to death because you were too drunk and debauched to move.”

Jin laughed, but Yuna could tell he was close to dropping off right there. Typical man.

“Come on, Lord Sakai,” she teased, standing up. She pulled on his arm until he followed suit and let himself be led to the temple. “Let’s get you to bed.”

“Yuna, you are trying to seduce me,” he said.

“I am not,” she laughed. “You wouldn’t have the stamina for it, anyway.”


	9. Day 9- Unnecessary Spoiling

_ I owe her everything and she’s the one giving  _ me _ gifts. _

……………………………

It was getting excessive.

It wasn’t that Jin didn’t appreciate the things Yuna was doing for him. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Any time Yuna stepped into the Dawn Refuge with a gift for him, Jin felt his stomach flutter warmly. It meant she had been thinking of him.

The problem was, Jin was starting to feel embarrassed at his inability to gift her things in return. It had taken him weeks to gather the materials to forge her a new  _ katana _ and another month after to make sure it was completed to his specifications. And after all that work, presenting it to her had been a fiasco. Jin had botched the ordeal so badly Yuna made him promise not to try and surprise her again.

He wanted very badly to give her a new bow. While not in as bad of shape as her sword and knife had been it did look ragged when she wore it with her new steel. Considering that Yuna was nearly always wearing her bow, it served as a constant reminder to Jin that she deserved better.

Getting her a new bow would be much easier than replacing her  _ katana  _ and  _ tanto  _ had been. But if he was going to get her a new bow, he would want to get her a matching quiver to go with it. She would need new arrows too, with better fletching and stronger wood than the ones she used. And while he was at it, the  _ yukata  _ she fought in provided worryingly little protection from enemies. And was that the only one she had? Surely, she would need more to get through the rest of the winter. And he wanted her to have a set of light armor to wear over it. But Jin simply didn’t have enough resources to get her everything he wanted to give her. Everything he felt like she deserved to have.

He was keeping a running list of items he wanted to get her. He kept it hidden under the stack of washi paper he kept on the low table where he kept his swords. Every night after he was sure Yuna had drifted off, Jin would creep over to the list, get out his calligraphy brush and add to it. He wasn’t sure why he did this; Yuna couldn’t read the characters. Perhaps it was because he knew if she found out, she would roll her eyes and call him foolish.

He  _ was  _ being foolish. Yuna had never asked anything of him and she wouldn’t expect him to do all of this for her. The small gifts she brought him were inconsequential: cages for his collection of singing crickets, folded origami animals, a discarded feather from a yellow songbird, anything she happened to see while out scouting that reminded her of him. But they felt like so much more.

He was still mulling this over when Yuna slid the  _ shoji  _ screen open.

“Jin,” she called out, slipping her quiver off of her back. “Are you home?”

“I’m here,” he answered. He only just managed to hide his list when Yuna turned the corner. Her cheeks were flush with the cold and she looked happy to see him. She untied a bag she had at her hip and brought it to Jin.

“I found a garden the Mongols missed,” she said. “I brought us  _ daikon  _ and cabbage. We can use some of that  _ katsuobushi  _ and have  _ nabe  _ for dinner.”

The vegetables she pulled out of her pack were small and withered, but not rotten. The  _ nabe  _ would be watery with just the vegetables and broth, but it would be nutritious and it would be warm. Yuna instructed Jin to start chopping and then set to work, rummaging around the shack for the cracked pot they used to cook with.

“The next time we are in town,” she said. “Remind me to stop by the merchant for a new pot. I don’t think we’ll get much more use out of this one.”

Jin frowned. That was one more thing she was offering up without a way for him to repay her. He set the knife down, leaving the daikon only half-peeled.

“Yuna, you don’t have to do this,” he said softly.

“I do,” She argued, sliding the _shoji_ door open to fill the pot with snow. “I’ve tasted your cooking and we both agreed that it’s better if I do it.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Jin said.

Yuna shut the _shoji_ door after the pot was filled and looked up at him.

“Then, what  _ do  _ you mean?” she asked, a look of confusion on her face.

“This,” he said. “All of this.”

He gestured generally toward the inside of the shack. There was not a corner that wasn’t decorated with one of Yuna’s gifts.

“You don’t have to keep bringing me things,” he said. “I owe you my life and so much more. It shames me to not be able to repay you for any of it.”

“Do you think I’m doing all of this so you’ll stay in my debt?” Yuna asked, a little affronted.

“No,” Jin said. “I think you are doing this because you are a good person. I just want to be able to show my gratitude adequately. And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to.”

Yuna abandoned the nabe pot and walked over to where Jin was seated. She gave him an incredulous look before pressing a chaste kiss to his lips.

“You are an  _ idiot _ , Jin Sakai” she said fondly. “You think I don’t owe you anything?”

She pressed her hand to his cheek. It was cold against his skin.

“You helped me rescue my brother when you didn’t have to,” she said. “When your uncle called for my head, you turned yourself in instead of giving it to him. You saved all of Tsushima from the Mongol invaders. And you gave me a reason to keep fighting after those Mongol dogs killed Taka.”

Jin winced. Yuna had forgiven him, but he still felt like her brother’s death was his fault. Taka had gone to follow him after all. And Jin hadn’t turned him away.

“ _ Don’t _ ,” she said, a tone of warning in her voice. “You weren’t responsible for what The Khan did to him.”

“Yuna,” he started to protest.

“You also gave me a  _ katana  _ fit for a lord,” she said. “And a  _ tanto  _ to match. How much did that cost you? Do you think I could ever hope to repay you for that?”

“You needed a new sword,” he said meekly.

“My old one was fine, Jin,” she said. “And these things I bring you, these trinkets? What are they compared to everything you’ve done for me?”

“But you deserve it all,” Jin answered.

“And you think you don’t?”

Jin lowered his eyes. Yuna had gotten too close to the truth and it made him uncomfortable. He knew becoming The Ghost and rebelling against his uncle was the right thing to do, but he couldn’t shake the guilt that came from doing it. His uncle had forgiven him in the end, but Jin had to live with the fact that he’d killed his last remaining blood relation and with him, the entire way of life that had been instilled in him since birth. He had no honor left. And a  _ samurai  _ without honor deserved death.

But then, he had to remind himself, he wasn't a  _ samurai  _ anymore. He wondered if there would ever come a day when he wouldn’t have to remind himself of this fact.

“No more of this,” Yuna said softly. “I’ll bring you gifts as I please, and you’ll say ‘thank you, Yuna, for this wonderful gift.’ Yes?”

One corner of Jin’s mouth tugged upwards. He turned back to the half-peeled  _ daikon  _ and picked it up.

“Thank you, Yuna,” he repeated. “For this wonderful gift.”

Yuna smiled and kissed him again. This time, her kiss was a little less chaste.


	10. Day 10- Bear Hug

She doesn’t notice the bear until it is too late. Jin screams out a warning, but Yuna Isn't fast enough. She feels powerful paws on her chest and suddenly she is flying.

She hits the ground with a sickening thunk and she cannot  _ breathe _ . She lays on the ground, gasping like a fish, trying in vain to fill her lungs. And then the bear is hovering over her, standing on its hind legs, ready to strike again. She doesn’t let herself look away. This is her death and she’ll stare it down as it takes her.

But the bear lists to the side suddenly, a pained growl resounding in the air. She sees the arrow in its shoulder and thinks  _ Jin _ . He’s leaping off of his horse,  _ katana _ unsheathed and glinting wickedly in the sun as he attacks the bear from above. 

Yuna rolls to her side, wincing at the pain in her torso. She thinks a rib is broken. But she has to move, to crawl out of the way. Jin and the bear give no mind to what is in their path and she doesn’t want to be trampled. She finds a soft spot of leaves and curls there, pouring with cold sweat and pale from the pain.

Jin fights like a demon. His speed is unrivaled and he is much more agile than the wounded bear. He weaves and rolls and darts, evading every swipe of the bear’s ugly claws. The bear is angry, in pain, and getting sloppy. Jin manages to sink his  _ katana _ into its neck all the way to the hilt and it’s over.

Jin whirls around to look for her before the bear even hits the ground.

“Yuna?” he calls out and she can hear the panic clearly in his voice. “ _ Yuna _ !”

By this time, she has managed to suck air into her lungs, although there’s a sharp pain in her side whenever she does.

“Here,” she calls weakly. She doesn’t think he can hear her, but he does.

He comes running, his cloak billowing behind him like a storm cloud. He slides to his knees at the last minute, almost barreling into her. He is covered in sweat and dark bear’s blood. His brow is furrowed and his eyes are worried.

“I’m okay,” she says. “I think.”

He tries to help her sit upright, but she cries out and he lowers her back to the ground

“You’re hurt,” he says.

“It’s nothing,” she says. “Just get me on Naoki and I’ll be fine.”

But Jin doesn’t listen.

“You’re bleeding.”

Gently, gently, he loosens the collar of her  _ yukata _ . There are deep gashes on the left side of her chest from the bear’s claws. Yuna sees the wound and feels lightheaded.

“Stay with me, Yuna,” Jin says. “Listen to my voice.”

Her head is swimming as she starts to go into shock from the pain and blood loss. Jin’s instincts kick in and he works through his panic, quickly removing his cloak and cutting it into long strips with his  _ tanto _ . He removes Yuna’s  _ yukata _ before the blood makes it stick to her skin. Then he binds her chest tightly with the strips he’s just cut.

“These should be boiled,” he says, talking through what he’s doing so she can have something to focus in. “And your wound needs to be cleaned. But it can’t be helped.”

Yuna can only focus on his voice. She can lose herself in its timbre and tone. She realizes how stupidly in love with him she is. She would laugh at herself for being such a lovestruck fool if she knew it wouldn’t hurt.

“There,” he says, tying off the last bandage. “That will do until we make it back to town. Luckily it isn’t that far.”

He gazes at her for a moment, tenderness written boldly across his face. He traces the line of her jaw softly with his thumb before pressing the flutter of a kiss to her lips. Then he turns around and crouches in front of her. He grabs her wrists and loops her arms around his neck.

“This will hurt only for a moment,” he says. 

Pain shoots through her torso and she groans as Jin lifts her onto his back. She thinks she must have blacked out for a moment, because she catches Jin mid-sentence.

“... on for a bit longer,” he says. “Please.”

“My horse,” she says.

“You can’t ride like this,” he says, relieved that she’s lucid again. “Naoki and Kaze are beside us.”

She rolls her head to look. The two horses are obediently following Jin as he carries her down the road. She thinks, not for the first time, how lucky she is to have a  _ samurai _ horse. How lucky she is to have her own  _ samurai _ too.

They make it to Jogaku well after dark. Jin lays Yuna down at the foot of the Buddha in the main temple and hurriedly rouses the monks from their sleep. Jin doesn’t rest until they have cleaned her wounds and replaced her bandages. Yuna has been given herbs for the pain and is in a half-waking state.

“She will live, Lord Sakai,” one of the monks says. “Our acolytes will stay with her through the night. Get some rest. You’ve carried her such a long way.”

“No,” Jin argues. “I will not leave her.”

There is more arguing, hushed tones and strained voices, but Yuna does not hear. She drifts off to a dreamless sleep. 

Jin is there when she wakes up, hours later. She doesn’t think he has slept. He is still covered in dried blood and dirt. There are uneaten riceballs growing cold next to him. He is oiling his  _ tanto _ when he notices her stirring. He drops the oil cloth and blade, leaving them forgotten as he rushes to her side.

“How are you feeling,” he asks. 

She moves around awkwardly. There is pain, but whatever the monks have given her has dulled it.

“Like I drank a whole barrel of Kenji’s finest,” she croaks.

Jin chuckles and it is the sweetest sound she’s ever heard.

“I didn’t think you would make it,” Jin says. “For a moment there, I thought you were gone.”

“I would have been if you weren’t there,” Yuna says. 

“You’re always rescuing me,” he said. “I’m glad I could return the favor.”

Yuna smiles. 

Then she says “Jin, you look like shit.” And his laughter rings throughout the ceiling beams.


	11. Day 11- Fingers in Each Others' Hair

Against all odds, they lived through the winter. Jin and his allies managed to run the last of the Mongols off of the island. All that was left were stragglers who missed the last boat off of Tsushima and the remnants of The Straw Hat  _ Ronin _ . But the fighting wasn’t finished. The snow melted and spring came, and with it came the shogun’s men.

“The  _ samurai  _ are coming in droves,” Yuna said one night as they slipped into a grove of bamboo trees.

They couldn’t afford to stay on the roads anymore. Every day that Jin wasn’t found, the Shogun sent more men to join the hunt. It was becoming dangerous to even visit the temples. There were a few villages left that were still relatively safe, but for the most part, Jin did not want to risk it. 

So they stuck to forests and mountains, traveling under the cover of darkness when they could. But even that wasn’t a guarantee of safety. More than once they had stumbled across a camp of  _ samurai  _ that they had to quickly dispatch. At first, Jin wanted to spare them, still bristling at the idea of killing a  _ samurai _ . But when one of the samurai stabbed him in the thigh, only barely missing a major artery, Jin changed his mind. He gave them swift, painless deaths without a second thought.

But it was getting harder and harder to keep going like this. Jin, already a bad sleeper, would wake up in the night with every noise. As carefully as they crept around, Jin was growing more paranoid that someone would spot them and they would be followed.

“We’re too recognizable,” He said, stepping carefully so as not to trip over any of the fresh bamboo shoots. “We’ll be spotted sooner or later if we keep pushing our luck.”

“Do you want to split up for a while?” Yuna asked quietly.

“No,” he answered quickly. It would be smarter for them to travel separately, but Jin hadn’t quite reached that level of desperation yet. Selfishly, he wanted Yuna by his side. As poorly as he slept, he slept better knowing Yuna was pressed against him in the night.

“Then what do you want to do?” she asked.

“Let me think on it.”

They traveled the rest of the way in silence and arrived at the Dawn Refuge as the moon reached its zenith. By then, Jin had come up with a plan. It wasn’t much, but it would buy them a little more time.

“We shouldn’t keep returning here every night,” he said. “We’ll scout around for other safe places. We’ll keep caches of supplies in each place we find. That should keep the shogun’s men off of our trail for a while.”

“That’s it?” Yuna asked. “That seems too easy.”

“No, there’s more,” Jin said reluctantly, unsheathing his tanto. “The samurai are looking for a  _ ronin  _ and his woman. We need to disguise ourselves.”

Yuna gasped as Jin gripped his topknot with his left hand and sawed it off with the  _ tanto  _ in his right hand. /the wisps of hair that floated around his face made him look like a wild man.

“It’s only hair, Yuna,” he said, tossing the knot on the ground. “And hair grows back.”

It was decided that they would take up the guise of a traveling monk and his attendant. At least until the  _ Shogun  _ thought they were dead. Yuna dreaded having to cut her hair to look like a boy, but she knew there was wisdom in Jin’s plan.

Jin stripped to his waist and sat down cross legged on the tatami mat as Yuna retrieved the razor and shaving supplies he kept to trim his beard. Before she cut, she ran her fingers through his hair one last time. He had a handsome head of hair, thick, black, and strong. He would let it down sometimes, when they lay together. She would be sad to see it go.

“Yuna?” he asked, turning to look at her.

She shook her thoughts away and dipped the razor in water.

“Hold still.”

With steady hands, Yuna ran the razor across his skin. The hair fell around him bit by bit until his head was as bald as Norio’s. Jin shook his head when she was finished, rubbing his hands against his skin, brushing away any stray hairs still there.

“How do I look?” he asked. 

“You’re not as handsome,” she said with a straight face, and Jin laughed at her solemnity.

“I don’t need to turn any heads right now,” he said, standing up and brushing off his  _ monpe _ . “All that matters is if I can pass for a monk or not.”

“You can pass,” Yuna said.

“Good,” he said. Then he turned to her. Yuna saw his eyes drift to her hair sadly.

“Do it, Jin,” she said. “It is too late to back down now.”

Jin nodded. Yuna rifled through Jin’s shaving kit and handed him a pair of short shears. Then, she removed her headband and untied her hair until it hung loosely around her shoulders. Jin ran a comb through it, almost reverently, before setting his face in a grim line and making the first cut.

Jin left more hair than she thought he would. Yuna worried that he would shave a tonsure on her pate. Instead, he had cut short bangs in a line across her forehead and cheek-length side-locks to accompany it. The rest of her hair, he had cut in a blunt line just above her shoulders. Long enough that she could still tie it back, but short enough that no one would take it for a woman’s cut.

“I look like Kintaro,” she said with a laugh.

“That was the idea,” he replied. “You’ll have to bind your chest when we travel. If you do that, I don’t think anyone will suspect you are a woman.”

“I feel as if I should be offended,” she said. “At least tell me if I make a pretty boy.”

“They’ll think I’m a lecherous old goat, traveling with such a fine-looking youth,” he said. 

“Good,” she said. Then she grabbed her discarded hair tie and wrapped her remaining hair into a small tail at the back of her neck. She set to work cleaning the hair from the floor as Jin put away his shaving supplies. Then, bone tired, they crawled into their shared  _ futon _ .

“I’ll awaken at dusk,” he said. “To start packing.”

“There’s a cave not far from here,” Yuna said. “I’ll take my bow and make sure a bear hasn’t taken up residence in it since the last time I was there.”

Jin rolled onto his back, cradling his head with one arm and holding Yuna to him with the other.

“I’m sorry about your hair,” he said. “I truly am.”

“I know, Jin,” she said, rubbing her fingers lightly across his chest. “But it will grow back. Just like you said.”

He rolled his head to look at her and she scooted up to press a kiss to his lips.

“Now get some sleep,” she said. “You’ve got a lot of work to do while I’m out scouting tomorrow.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kintaro is a legendary figure with supernatural strength who would do sumo with grown-men when he was a baby. He has a pretty famous pageboy haircut, which is what Yuna is referring to.


	12. Day 12- Movie Night

“Are you sure he’ll be here?” Yuna asked, as she followed Jin through the camp.

“I’m sure,” Jin said. “A man at Kushi Temple told me.”

“Oh I see,” she said. “The most trustworthy of sources.”

Jin turned to give her a vaguely annoyed look. She raised her hands in acquiescence and continued to follow him through the dark.

They found the musician seated in front of a fire, a small crowd slowly gathering around him. When Yamato spotted Jin, he waved a greeting at him. Jin shot a smug look toward Yuna.

“You’re just in time, Lord Sakai,” he said. “And you’ve brought a friend this time.”

At the mention of Jin’s name, the small crowd began to twitter. He could only make out fragments of whispers. Rumblings about The Ghost, rumors of revenge and the like. Jin did his best to ignore it.

“This is Lady Yuna,” he said, introducing her to the musician.

“Jin told me about your skill as a storyteller,” she said. “He said you had no rival. I wanted to hear for myself.”

“Lord Sakai flatters me,” Yamato replied. “I hope he has not exaggerated my abilities.”

“I haven’t,” Jin said.

“No matter,” Yamato continued. “I hope I do not disappoint you, Lady Yuna. Now please, take a seat. It is time to begin.”

Yuna and Jin picked their way through the small crowd until they found a place to sit. They both knelt on the ground, Yuna leaning a little more on Jin that decorum called for. It used to embarrass him, how free she was with her touches. Now, it sent a delicious shiver up his spine.

The firelight flickered over Yamato’s face as he raised his plectrum high and struck the strings of his  _ biwa _ . The sound rang out into the night and a hush fell over the crowd.

“ _ Mukashi, mukashi _ ,” Yamato began. “Long ago, there was a warrior-priest by the name of Kairyou…”

……………...

_ Kairyou was brave and headstrong. He traveled all of Japan, going to the deepest, darkest places to cleanse them. Kairyou took pride in the fact that he would go where no other priest would. _

_ One evening, he found himself alone in the mountains just before sunset. He made preparations to camp for the night when he chanced to spy a woodcutter walking up through the forest, a load of wood on his back. _

_ “Surely you cannot mean to sleep here for the night,” the woodcutter called out. “Don’t you know there are monsters on this mountain?” _

_ “I am not afraid of any  _ kitsune  _ or  _ tanuki  _ lurking in the darkness,” Kairyou boasted _

_ “The wise man does not court peril recklessly,” the woodcutter replied. “My home is only a little further ahead. You would do me great honor if you passed the night with my family and I.” _

_ Kairyou agreed and followed the woodcutter further up the mountain until they came to a secluded cabin that looked to be in a bad state of disrepair. However, when they arrived, the  _ shoji  _ door slid open and they were greeted by the woodcutter’s wife and his three beautiful daughters. Upon seeing Kairyou, they bowed low, greeting him in a way that befitted a lord. _

Such manners from people so far removed from civilization,  _ Kairyou thought. _

_ All night, Kairyou was treated to first-class hospitality. The woodcutter was a generous host. His wife was an excellent cook and his beautiful daughters fell over themselves trying to keep his sake cup filled. As the night grew later, Kairyou found his eyelids grow heavier and heavier until he fell asleep. _

_ He woke in the night, alone in the dark. Kairyou heard hushed voices coming from the next room over. It sounded like they were arguing. _

_ “I gave him the most sake,” one said. “I should get him!” _

_ “You got the last one,” another hissed. “This one is mine.” _

_ “We will share,” a deeper voice said. It was unmistakably the woodcutter. “We rarely get so delicious a treat as a monk. There is enough of him for all of us to eat our fill.” _

_ Kairyou tried to slip out as silently as he could, but the woodcutter’s family heard him. The  _ shoji _ paper ripped open and the priest could not believe what he saw. The woodcutter’s three beautiful daughters glared and snarled, their features twisted and ugly as an  _ oni _. But it was only their faces looming over him. Their bodies were nowhere to be found! _

_ “Father!” one called. “He is trying to escape!” _

_ “Give chase, my daughters!” _

………………

Yamato was in rare form. His plectrum danced along the  _ biwa _ strings as he wove his story. Jin could see the images in his mind's eye. He was no longer in the midst of a camp in Toyotama, but a dilapidated shack in the mountains with the warrior-priest Kairyou. Then, Yuna shivered against Jin despite the warmth of the fire. Her movement drew his attention away from the story and he turned to look at her. 

She was completely enthralled as he had been moments earlier. Her eyes were open wide and Jin knew she was seeing Yamato’s words made flesh. Her mouth hung open in a silent gasp and she involuntarily clutched Jin’s hand as the singer continued. But Jin was no longer listening.

He knew this story; Yuriko had told him of the  _ nukekubi  _ as a boy whenever he was in the mood for a frightening tale. He knew that Kairyou would prevail at the last minute, using his wits to keep the  _ yokai  _ separated from their heads as the sun came up. Granted, Yamato told it better than Yuriko did, but the story would be the same. 

Instead of focusing on the story, Jin watched Yuna take it all in. She was so expressive, so enraptured with the story. It was funny how Jin could find new things about her every day that made his heart feel full. He only regretted that their lives as they were now didn’t allow for more opportunities like this.

When Yamato finished the tale, there was a scattering of applause and the spell over Yuna was broken. She looked almost dazed, like she was remembering she was here on Tsushima with Jin instead of the mountains with Kairyou and the  _ nukekubi _ .

“You were right about Yamato,” she said. “That was… I felt like I was there.”

“I wouldn’t lie to you,” Jin said. “Although I had hoped he would have sung a romance tonight instead of a ghost story.”

“No, I liked it,” Yuna protested. “It was exciting.”

“Our life isn’t exciting enough?” 

“It’s the wrong kind of exciting,” she said. “There’s something comforting about monsters in the old stories actually  _ being  _ monsters. Our monsters are people.”

Jin was silent for a moment. Fireflies buzzed around them and the night was filled with the sound of crickets and the soft chatter of the others at the camp.

“Still,” Yuna continued. “A romance might not be so bad to hear. Especially with a night like this.”

Jin looked over toward her to see she was looking up at him, her eyes starry and dancing.

“Come, Yuna,” he said, tugging at her hand and pulling her away from the camp. “I think there’s an  _ onsen  _ nearby. We might have better luck finding romance there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story Yamato tells of the nukekubi is an actual folktale (albeit very abridged and retorld). It was recorded by Lafcadio Hearn under the name "Rokurokubi". However, the rokurokubi is actually a completely different yokai. But still, the story's pretty good if you want to look it up. Even Hellboy used it it in one of the comics and one of the cartoons. It's one of my favorites!


	13. Day 13- Hand Holding for Comfort

Winter had come, then spring, and summer. The days grew shorter, the air crisper. The leaves were a brilliant symphony in hues of reds and yellows. Before they knew it, fall had come creeping in and it had been a full year since The Mongols had first come to Tsushima. And it had been a year since Taka was killed.

Yuna wanted to make a pilgrimage to her brother’s grave. The mound they’d buried him in was still undisturbed, although now grass was growing between the stones of his cairn. The post they’d erected was weathered, but still standing. Jin wished they could give Taka something better, but this was all he would have.

Yuna packed a lunch of cold  _ onigiri  _ with pickled vegetables while Jin visited the Yarikawa to haggle for incense sticks. They met on the road leading towards the cliffs that overlooked the sea and rode together solemnly. When they arrived, Jin hung back with the horses as Yuna strode toward her brother’s resting place.

He could hear her talking, although he tried not to listen. Instead, he focused on the songs of birds flying overhead. He would let Yuna have all the privacy she needed for this. After some time, she turned and called him over.

“We should clean the grave,” she said. “I wish we’d thought to bring water to wash this moss off the stones. But we can pull the weeds.”

Jin nodded and set to work, following Yuna’s lead. It was harder than it seemed. Some of the roots were deep and would not be pulled easily. And the sun beat down on the back of his neck, making him sweat despite the cool in the autumn air. He wished that he had thought to bring one of his wide-brimmed hats, but kept his complaints to himself.

When Yuna was satisfied that the grave was clean enough, they wiped the dirt from their hands and spread out a cloth in front of the stones. Jin pulled the incense from his sleeves as well as a flint and steel. He stood the incense sticks in the now-soft dirt and handed the lighting tools to Yuna. She struck the flint once, twice, three times and the heady aroma of flowers drifted up in smoke.

While she was lighting the incense, Jin was unpacking their lunch. He placed one of the rice balls and a bit of the pickled vegetables on either side of the sticks of incense. Then, they prayed, clapping their hands together and silently reciting one of the sutras.

_ Norio should be here _ , Jin thought.  _ He could do a real ceremony _ . But Yuna hadn’t wanted anyone but Jin there.

“My brother idolized you,” she had told him. “It’s only fitting that you come too.”

After their prayer, they sat down to their meal. They ate in silence, watching the smoke from the incense curl into the air and float out over the sea.

“Does it ever get easier, Jin?” Yuna finally asked him.

Jin had lived closer to death than Yuna had. He sometimes still dreamed of his mother wasting away in her sick bed or his father pleading for help as he was taken down by bandits in the courtyard. In the darkness he saw Ryuzo’s face as Jin took his life. He saw his uncle laying dead in the red leaves of the sparring grounds.

“No,” he said after some thought. “It will always hurt.”

Yuna looked down at the dirt and took in a shaky breath, trying not to cry. Jin leaned over and found her hand. He laced his fingers with hers and gave her hand a soft squeeze. 

“You  _ do  _ learn to live with it though,” Jin continued. “You have to.”

He could feel Yuna shaking beside him. Her grip on his hand was strong and a sob escaped her lips. He slipped his hand from hers and wrapped his arm about her shoulders. Jin tucked her head under his chin and she buried her face in his chest and wept.


	14. day 14- Forehead Kiss

Jin didn’t know how he had let them talk him into a drinking game. He was far too old for this, they all were. And yet he, Yuna, Taka, Kenji, and even Norio were all crowded into an abandoned shack getting drunk on Kenji’s latest brew.

“The game is called  _ Ō-sama _ ,” Kenji explained as he scratched a number on the end of a handful of chopsticks. “We get assigned a number and  _ Ō-sama _ gets to pick from those numbers and tell everyone else what to do.”

“That doesn’t sound like much of a game,” Jin said sullenly.

“Kenji left out the part where there’s drinking,” Yuna laughed.

“Yes, if you don’t want to do what the  _ Ō-sama _ says, you have to finish your drink,” Kenji said, mixing the chopsticks in his hand.

“But you can also just drink whenever,” Yuna said.

“ _ I’m _ explaining the rules,” Kenji said indignantly. “Not you.”

“Then explain them better.”

“It sounds like a good way to make a fool of yourself,” Jin muttered.

“That’s the point, my lord,” Taka said with a smile. 

“How do we know who the  _ Ō-sama  _ is,” Norio asked.

“One of these doesn’t have a number on it,” Kenji said, waving the chopsticks around. “That’s how we’ll know.”

“Hurry and pass them out,” Yuna complained, already taking a sip from the sake gourd in front of her.

“You have no patience!” Kenji fussed, but he held out his hand anyway. The end he’d scratched numbers on were hidden in his palm. One by one, they each pulled a chopstick until there was one left in Kenji’s hand.

“Keep your number a secret!” Kenji instructed. “Unless you are the  _ Ō-sama _ .”

“That’s me,” Yuna said, holding up her chopstick triumphantly.

“Yuna gets to give the first order,” Kenji explained. “And we have to do it. Or drink.”

“This is stupid,” Jin said.

“You’ll feel differently when you are the  _ Ō-sama _ ,” Yuna said. “For my first order, we’ll start easily. Which one of you is number 3?”

Jin looked down at his chopstick and groaned.

“Perfect,” Yuna laughed. “Number 3, climb to the roof of this hut and back. Without your  _ kaginawa _ .”

“This is starting out easily?” Jin asked.

Yuna just smiled as Norio, Taka, and Kenji began to egg him on. With a huff, he stood up and made to go outside.

“Wait,” Yuna called after him. She picked up his sake gourd and brought it to him.

“I thought I only had to drink if I wasn’t going to do it,” he said.

“Liquid courage always helps,” Yuna said. “Plus, it might put you in a better mood.”

Jin scowled, but took a deep drink from the sake gourd and it burned his throat on the way down. He handed it back to her with a look of determination on his face and walked out into the darkness. She followed with the other three sticking their heads out of the door to watch him.

Jin made a circuit around the hut, looking for an easy place to start his climb. When he found none, he sighed. Yuna probably knew that when she gave the order. 

Jin made a running leap, just barely catching his fingers on the roof hanging over the veranda. If he hadn’t been so used to leaping around cliffs to reach  _ shinto  _ shrines, Jin probably would have hurt himself. But since he was used to using these muscles, he quickly pulled himself up and scaled the inclined roof like a monkey.

“I’m at the top!” he called out. Norio, Taka, and Kenji rushed out to stand beside Yuna and confirm that he’d made it to the top without cheating.

“That was too easy, Yuna,” Jin heard Taka say.

“I would like to see one of you try,” Jin retorted.

“Stop complaining and come down already,” Yuna said.

Descending was a lot easier than ascending had been. He climbed down to the overhang and jumped, landing on his feet like a cat.

“Another round,” Kenji said, gathering up the chopsticks again. 

This time, it was Taka that drew the blank one.

“Number 1 has to stand on one leg for a whole minute,” Taka said after some thought. “If you can’t, you have to finish your drink.”

Jin looked worriedly at the sake gourds. They were still mostly full. But no one else seemed to mind the order. Kenji was the unlucky person who had to carry out the order and he didn’t even make it 15 seconds. His cheeks were tinged with pink by the time he’d downed his sake gourd.

Round and round they went, well into the night. The orders got more and more ridiculous as they each got more and more drunk. And a stupid as it all was, Jin was having fun inspite of himself. The sake made him feel warm and loose, like he didn’t have the combined weight of rescuing his uncle and saving Tsushima from the Mongols on his shoulders.

At least, he was having fun until Kenji finally got a turn as  _ Ō-sama _ .”

“The mighty  _ Ō-sama _ orders numbers 2 and numbers 4 to kiss,” he said.

“I’m number four,” Yuna declared, her cheeks flushed, her voice a bit too loud. “Which one of you am I kissing?”

Norio blushed and Taka made a disgusted face as they both looked down into their hands. Then, they both simultaneously turned to look at Jin. He looked down at the chopstick in his hand and squinted at the number scratched there. Two.  _ Shit _ .

“Interesting,” Kenji said in a sing-song voice.

“I don’t want to play this game anymore,” Jin said and the room erupted in protest.

“You don’t, do you?” Yuna said, crossing her arms over her chest.

It wasn’t that Jin didn’t want to kiss Yuna. In fact, it was the exact opposite. He thought she was beautiful from the moment he’d woken up in the shack she’d dragged him to. Terrifying, but beautiful. He didn’t think anything more than that at first, but she kept proving herself to be loyal and capable and brave. 

He would dream of her sometimes and would wake up frustrated with sticky blankets. But he wouldn’t allow himself any more than that. Yuna and Taka would be leaving for the mainland soon and there were still Mongols to fight. There was no point in pursuing it. If he kissed her, even within the constraints of the game where it meant nothing, he knew he’d never be able to move on from her when she was gone.

“Well the game’s not finished,” Yuna continued. “You can’t quit until the round is complete.”

Jin picked up his sake gourd, hoping he could drink his way out of the situation. Unfortunately, it was empty.

“Look at the brave  _ samurai _ , afraid to kiss a peasant woman,” Yuna laughed. Jin felt the color rush to his cheeks as everyone else laughed along with her.

“I’m not afraid,” Jin said. 

“Then prove it,” she said, a challenge in her eyes.

Jin sighed. There wasn’t a way to avoid this. Unless there was.

He stood up and walked quickly to Yuna. He licked his dry lips and put his hands on either side of her face. Then quickly, he declined her head and gave her a quick peck on the forehead. Taka, Kenji, and Norio burst into laughter.

“That’s not what Kenji meant and you know it,” Yuna hissed.

“He just said we had to kiss,” Jin protested. “He didn’t give specifics.”

Yuna narrowed her eyes, then attacked. She grabbed him by the collar of his  _ yukata _ and pulled him to her. His eyes widened in surprise as she felt her mouth on his. He was kissing her back before he had the good sense to try and push her off of him.

“I’m right here,” Taka groaned, averting his eyes. “No man should have to watch his friend kiss his sister.”

Yuna pulled away from Jin with a triumphant grin on her face. She pushed him down before tossing her head and taking a drink from her sake gourd. Jin’s face burned a bright red and he knew he was well and truly fucked.


	15. Day 15- Shared looks from Across the Room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Half-way done, people! Thanks for sticking around. This chapter has references to a past stillbirth if you would like to skip it.

The scream rang out through the temple at midnight. Jin and Yuna both jumped up from where they lay, grabbing their weapons, ready to defend Cedar Temple. But there were no Mongols and no bandits. Only a heavily pregnant woman, lying on the ground clutching at her stomach. A number of monks rushed around her, including Norio.

“It’s coming,” she panted. “The baby’s coming!”

“Try to be calm,” Norio said. “We have healers here, we can help.”

“Jin,” Yuna said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “We should clear the room.”

Jin nodded and went to work ushering refugees into other parts of the temple. When the monks saw what he and Yuna were doing, they rushed to help, finding places to squeeze the families into to give the woman some privacy. Soon, it was just the woman and the monks left on the floor. 

“Did you see a husband?” Yuna whispered to Jin and he shook his head. Yuna bit her lip, a quirk Jin had never known her to have.

“I’m going to stay with her,” Yuna said suddenly.

“What?” 

“She’s all alone, Jin,” Yuna replied.

“The monks are with her,” he protested, which earned a scoff from Yuna.

“You men really don’t know how it is for women, do you?” She said. But there was no malice in her voice.

“I suppose not,” he said, feeling a little ashamed, though he couldn’t say why.

Yuna grabbed Jin’s hand and gave it a fond squeeze, before rushing to the woman’s side. The monks tried to stop her at first, but she fixed them with such a glare that they let her do as she pleased.

“Hello, I’m Yuna,” she said, slipping the woman’s hand into her own and giving it a squeeze. “You’re going to be alright.”

The woman clutched Yuna’s hand so hard, Jin could see that her knuckles were white. Yuna didn’t indicate that it hurt. Instead, she smoothed the woman’s hair back from her face and spoke to her in a calm voice.

Jin was amazed at how quickly Yuna slipped into a supporting role for this woman. As the monks moved around them, bringing in boiled water and rags, Yuna spoke to the woman like she knew her for years. 

“It hurts,” the woman groaned.

“I know,” Yuna soothed. “But you are strong and you will get through this. For your child.”

“Jin,” Norio said, appearing at his side. “This is no place for you. You should go.”

Norio was right. Jin knew next to nothing about childbirth. And he was sure the woman wouldn’t want him sticking around to find out. But he was hesitant about leaving Yuna’s side, even though he knew that he would only be in the way.

As if she knew he was thinking of her, Yuna looked up and locked eyes with him. She gave him a nod, letting him know that she would be fine, then turned her attention back to the woman.

“Alright,” Jin said to Norio. “Let’s go.”

The woman labored for hours. Jin tried to keep himself busy, but he found his thoughts drifting back to Yuna in the temple. He didn’t know why, it wasn’t as if it was Yuna’s wailing he heard drifting out into the courtyard. He had long since accepted that, no matter how much he wanted it, he would never get a child on her. The risk was simply too great.

The sun was high in the sky when the woman’s groans finally stopped. Jin felt his heart clench up for a moment before the strong cries of an infant rang out in the sky.

“Praise the Buddha,” he muttered involuntarily.

It was still some time before Yuna emerged from the temple. She was exhausted and sweaty, but had a smile on her face.

“It was a strong, fat little boy,” Yuna said. “She named him Shoichi after his father.”

“Will the mother be alright?” Jin asked.

“She had a hard labor,” Yuna answered. “She’s tired. But yes, she will live.”

Jin procured them some rice with vegetables and found a secluded area so they could have their meal. They ate in silence for a while, Jin mulling thoughts over in his head. Finally, he voiced what had been filling his thoughts.

“You kept a cool head back there,” Jin said. “With the woman and her child.”

“It wasn’t my first birth,” Yuna said calmly. 

“Did you used to help with the birthing in Yarikawa?” he asked.

“No,” Yuna answered. It took a moment for Jin to realize the implication of the sad smile she gave him.

“You…” he started. “You had a child?”

He knew Yuna didn’t like to talk about her old life, but it struck him just how little he knew of her past. She kept so much to herself, but this seemed like something big, something she should have told him about.

“I did,” she said. “And I didn’t. The child didn’t live through the night.”

Jin felt his heart ache. He had the overwhelming urge to wrap Yuna in his arms and hold her tighter than he’d ever held her before. But Yuna’s face remained placid and her voice was calm.

“It was after I had taken up with Takeshi in Sago,” she said. “I was not as careful about drinking my tea then as I am now. I wanted to get rid of it, but Takeshi was so happy when he found out.”

Jin could feel the grief welling up in him and it made him sick.

“There was no indication that there was anything wrong with the child,” Yuna continued. “But when my time came there was blood. More blood than when my mother had Taka. The child lived for two hours before it stopped breathing.”

Jin couldn’t stop himself this time. He pulled Yuna to him in a tight embrace.Yuna froze at first, but then returned the embrace, melting into his arms.

“She had my nose, Jin,” Yuna said with a trembling voice. “I dream about her sometimes, about what she would be like had she lived.”

“She would have been strong and clever like her mother,” Jin said.

Yuna sniffed and pulled away to look at him. Her eyes were red, but she had no tears.

“I swore I’d never go through that again,” Yuna said. “That’s why I drink the tea.”

Jin nodded.

“But,” she continued, hesitant. “I think if the Mongols were gone… If the Shogun wasn’t hunting you, I might stop.”

“ _ Yuna _ ,” Jin said softly, tracing his thumb against her cheek.

“It’s foolish to go down that path, I know,” she said. “But sometimes when I dream of my daughter, I see a boy beside her with my nose and  _ your _ eyes.”

Jin felt his eyes start to sting, even as Yuna’s began to shine with tears.

“I would risk it again,” she continued. “If I knew we’d live to see him grow into manhood.”

It was unfair. It was all so unfair. Jin could live with his own wanting, but knowing that Yuna wanted this as badly as he did was unbearable. He would give anything in the world to please her, but this was the one thing he couldn’t.

“Don’t think on it,” he said, voice husky with emotion, although he couldn’t tell if he was talking to Yuna or himself. “Please, don’t think on it.”

He held Yuna for some time after that. The exhaustion and grief combined with the warmth of the sun as it traveled westward lulled her to sleep. Jin stroked her hair as she breathed softly against his chest. Then and only then did he allow his own tears to quietly fall.


	16. Day 16- Pet Names

Jin hated when Yuna called him “Lord Sakai”. Yuna  _ knew  _ that he hated it. He had asked her many times to just call him “Jin”. And she did, mostly. Except when she didn’t.

“Oh, are you angry with me, Lord Sakai?” she asked, her cheeks tinged pink from the  _ sake  _ they’d been sharing. 

She was drunk. They both were. Her  _ obi  _ was tied very loosely around her waist and one side of her  _ yukata  _ slipped from her shoulders. Jin wasn’t angry, just very annoyed. And frustratingly aroused. But every time he grabbed at her, Yuna swatted his hands away.

“I told you not to call me that,” he scowled.

“I know,” she replied with a grin. “But maybe I like the idea of sleeping with a Lord.”

“Do you?” he asked, frowning. “Because you seem to be actively avoiding it.”

Yuna laughed and took a deep drink from the  _ sake  _ gourd. Jin watched her throat move as she drank and wanted very badly to bite the skin there. Then she set the gourd down and crawled into his lap.

“You are impatient,  _ Lord Sakai _ ,” she said wickedly. Jin growled in response and actually did bite her then. Yuna shrieked in delight as his teeth sank into her skin and she made a half-hearted effort to shoo him away. But he didn’t stop until he was sure he'd left a mark.

“It’s only because you tease me so,  _ Lady Yuna _ ,” he replied. 

“Lady Yuna” she mused, slipping her hands inside the collar of his  _ yukata _ . She tweaked one of his nipples and he involuntarily bucked against her. “I like the sound of that.”

It wasn’t the first time Jin or anyone else had called her Lady Yuna. But it was the first time she responded to it so enthusiastically. She moved her hips against his and moaned a kiss into his mouth.Jin slipped her  _ yukata  _ the rest of the way off, tossing it aside and laid her down on the tatami mats. He started to untie his  _ hakama  _ but Yuna propped herself up on her elbows and gave him a look.

“What?” he asked.

Yuna only smiled and motioned for him to continue. He rolled his eyes, but felt a fire burning in his belly. He knew what to expect when he saw  _ that  _ look in Yuna’s eyes. He continued to remove his clothes until he was down to just his  _ fundoshi _ . Jin’s cock strained against the thin fabric and Yuna watched him like a predator.

“Take it off,” she said in a low, sultry voice. “Slowly.”

Jin shot her an inquisitive look, but did as she asked. He took his time unraveling the fabric until he was naked before her. Yuna didn't take her eyes off of him once.

“Does this please you, Lady Yuna?” he asked.

“It does.” 

Then she wiggled out of her  _ monpe  _ until she was just as naked as he was. She crooked a finger, beckoning Jin to crawl over to her. He kissed her, placing a hand on her shoulder and pushing until she lay down. Then he kissed her again. She reached her hand between them and wrapped her fist around him. Jin let his eyes flutter shut as she stroked him before batting her away.

“I can’t let my lady do  _ that _ ,” he said.

It was her turn to give him an inquisitive look. Jin grinned wolfishly and started to kiss at her neck again. Then he moved lower to her breasts and lower still to her stomach.

“Jin?” she asked breathlessly, but he didn’t answer. Instead, he nipped at the flat, tan skin of her belly and spread her thighs. He glanced back up at her to see that she was watching him, her cheeks flushed and her pupils blown. He placed one last kiss on her inner thigh before dipping his head between her legs.

Yuna gasped when she felt his mouth on her.

“J-jin,” she shuddered. “What are you…”

But Jin didn’t pull away to explain and Yuna didn’t try again to stop him. He flicked and rolled his tongue until she pulled his hair and bucked her hips against his face. Every one of her moans went straight to his cock and it was all he could do to stop himself from sinking into her right there. But he wanted to taste her first.

Yuna was close. Her breath was hitching and her fingernails dug into his scalp. She came with a howl, too overtaken by the feeling to muffle herself. Jin kept his mouth pressed to her until she’d ridden out her pleasure and released her grip on his hair. Then he wiped his lips and sat back on his heels until she could speak again, slowly stroking himself as he watched her recover.

“Do all lords treat their ladies that way?” she asked, panting. There was a fine sheen of sweat on her shining in the light of the lantern. He still had the tang of her on his tongue, but he greedily wanted to taste her skin as well.

“I don’t know,” he confessed.

“Then why did you do it?”

“Because,  _ Lady Yuna _ ” he said, crawling toward her. He positioned himself at her entrance and pushed inside her. She groaned into his ear and he bit another mark into the skin of her throat. “I wanted to.”


	17. Day 17- Early Morning Cuddling

It was rare that Yuna woke before Jin. Lately, he had taken up meditation, something he hadn’t done since he was a boy. He said it was to rid himself of the stress of being a hunted man. Yuna had laughed at him at first, but it worked. He was able to calm his mind enough to sleep through the night, and for the first time in a very long while, she awoke to the sounds of his snoring in her ear.

She opened her eyes and turned her head toward the sound and smiled. Jin was dead to the world and completely undignified. His mouth hung slack while his limbs were strewn haphazardly across the  _ futon _ . His face, normally marred by furrows and frowns, was now slack and smooth. It made him look younger. 

Careful not to wake him, Yuna maneuvered herself under his arm under the blankets. She threw an arm over his chest and hugged herself to him, relishing in the warmth he emitted. She moved her legs, intertwining them with his, trying to get as close to him as she could. She felt his arm curl around her shoulder.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said softly.

Jin yawned and stretched the arm that wasn’t holding her. 

“I don’t mind,” he replied, voice thick with sleep. He rubbed at his eyes and turned to look at Yuna, giving her a sleepy grin. She felt her affection for him warm throughout her chest.

“Go back to sleep, Jin,” she said.

Jin yawned and shifted so that he was lying on his side, facing her. She missed the weight of his arm around her shoulder when he moved it to curl under his head. But he snaked his other arm around her waist and she was happy again. 

Yuna was used to being the person people relied on to keep them safe. When Taka was alive, she looked out for him and protected him as much as she could. As annoying as he could be sometimes, she even felt the need to watch over Kenji to be sure he was staying out of trouble. She took care of Jin too, right after Komoda Beach. But she didn’t need to protect him for very long.

Jin was protecting everyone now, Yuna Included. It felt strange at first, having someone worry about her safety. She’d told Jin that she was more than capable of taking care of herself, but he was still always right behind her, ready to push her aside and take the fall if he needed to. It felt selfish to let him keep doing it when there were people on Tsushima who actually did need his help. But she liked letting him do it. It made her feel special, important. Those weren’t sensations she felt often in her life.

She curled an arm under her head, mirroring Jin’s pose and sighed.

“You need more rest.”

“I  _ am _ resting,” he protested.

“I meant sleep.”

“Are you going back to sleep?” he asked.

“No.”

“Then I won’t either.”

Yuna propped herself up on her elbow and frowned disapprovingly at him. Jin chuckled and her frown deepened.

“I will sleep if you lay back down with me,” he said. “Even if it is only for a little while.”

Yuna rolled her eyes, but felt the corners of her mouth quirk upwards.

“Foolish,” she muttered.

“Indulge me.”

She made a big show of rolling her eyes, but she moved against him, face pressed to his chest and head tucked under his chin. His arms went around her and he let out a contented hum, pressing a kiss into her hair.

“Now  _ sleep _ ,” she said.

And he did.


	18. Day 18- Admiring Each Other

Sensei Ishikawa had allowed Jin the use of his dojo to train. Jin had taken Yuna along, which the old  _ samurai  _ had not been happy about at first. He was still hesitant to take on any new students after Tomoe. Yuna said she had absolutely no interest in becoming “the grumpy old goat’s student,” which was the only reason Ishikawa didn’t push back too hard about her presence.

But the perfectionist in him couldn’t sit idly by as he watched Jin and Yuna shoot at the targets in the yard.

“Lift your elbow higher when you draw your bow,” Ishikawa said gruffly, sipping tea cross-legged on the veranda. “It will improve your aim.”

“My aim is just fine,” Yuna said, releasing an arrow to prove her point. She grinned smugly as it landed in the center.

Ishikawa set his tea down and stood up abruptly, walking over to the target. Jin set his bow on the ground and leaned on it as he watched the old man walk across the firing range.

“If you improve your form, you’ll have that much more control over where your arrow lands,” Ishikawa said. “See? Just shy of center?”

Yuna scoffed, but followed him to the target. He had been correct. The hole from her arrow was close, very close, but just to the lower left of center.

“I still killed my enemy,” Yuna said, scowling at the target.

“Or you just missed his heart,” Ishikawa said. “In battle, a hair’s breadth can mean the difference between life or death.”

Yuna gave him a hard look before snatching the arrow from his hand and stomping back to where Jin was standing. Ishikawa followed suit, standing behind her as she nocked an arrow on her bowstring. Jin watched as she brought the bow up over her head and pulled the arrow back to her ear.

“Higher,” Ishikawa growled. And to Jin’s surprise, Yuna moved her arm.

“When you draw your bow, you want a perfect line across your chest from elbow to elbow,” Ishikawa said. “To tell the arrow exactly which path you want it to take.”

Yuna released the bow string and fired her arrow in a smooth arc, hitting the next target in the dead center. Ishikawa grunted in approval.

“Better,” he said, then he walked back to the veranda to finish his tea.

……………………

She’d taken Ishikawa’s lessons to heart. Yuna practiced with her bow whenever she had an idle moment and Jin watched her when he could. She started slowly at first, having to fight years of drawing her bow as she pleased until drawing it Ishikawa’s way became second nature to her.

It was evening now, and she was taking advantage of the sun before it sank behind the trees. She had one arrow left to shoot in her quiver and she quickly nocked it. Then, she raised her bow over her head, elbows held high and wide. In one fluid motion she brought the bow down to eye-level and pulled the arrow back to her ear. She held her arms so that they made a line across her body and released the arrow with a loud twang. Yuna threw her arms back as she did so, never taking her eyes off of her arrow. It hit the target squarely in the center with a satisfying  _ thunk _ .

Jin, although a good archer, preferred to use his  _ katana _ . He had never understood how Ishikawa could dedicate his life to archery the way he did. The Way of the Sword was much more dynamic and appealing. But watching Yuna practice, he thought he could start to understand the quiet beauty of the Way of the Bow.

Or maybe he was just a lovestruck fool. Yuna and Ishikawa both would most likely say that was the case. And they might have been right.

Jin stepped down from the pagoda he’d been watching her from and went to help Yuna put away her targets.

“You’re getting better,” he said.

“Not as good as you,” Yuna replied, inspecting one of her arrow’s fletching before putting it back into her quiver.

“You will be,” Jin said. “Sensei Ishikawa wouldn’t have taken an interest in you if he didn’t think you had promise.”

“That old goat’s just looking for someone to move in with him,” she answered. “He’s lonely and wants a woman around and this is the only way he can get one.”

“He probably  _ is  _ lonely,” Jin said. “But I don’t think he’s after what you think he is.”

“Either way,” she said. “I won’t be his student. Even if he  _ was  _ right about my elbow.”

Jin dropped his eyes and laughed, briefly flashing his white teeth. 

“Besides,” Yuna continued. “He taught you, didn’t he?”

“Briefly.”

“Then you can teach me what you learned from him,” she continued.

“I don’t know that there’s much I could teach you that you don’t already know,” he said. “After all, I didn’t catch the thing with your elbow. He did.”

Yuna frowned. 

“You shoot well without his tutelage,” Jin said. “No one’s making you train with him.”

“I know,” Yuna said. “But…”

She changed her mind about finishing her sentence and shook the thought away. She set about cleaning her practice area up, but Jin wouldn’t have it.

“But what?” Jin prodded. 

She shot him an annoyed look and continued to put away her things. Even so, she answered his question.

“But I want to be better,” she said. “Ishikawa was right about missing your target by a hair’s breadth. I wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if something happened to you because my aim was off.”

She finished putting away the last of her targets and slung her bow across her back. She looked embarrassed that Jin had made her admit that she was worried about him. Jin would have laughed if he didn’t think it would annoy her further.

Instead, he stood in front of her, both hands on her shoulders as he looked her in the eyes.

“Even if you missed, I wouldn’t blame you.”

“I know,” Yuna scowled. “It would be infuriating.”

Jin did laugh then. Yuna smiled to see it.


	19. Day 19- Laughing Together

“This is going to end terribly,” Jin said. “I should put an end to this foolishness.”

“Don’t you take this from me, Jin Sakai,” Yuna hissed. “I want to see Kenji get knocked on his ass.”

They were at the training grounds of the Cedar Temple. Kenji had gotten the harebrained idea that he needed to learn to defend himself in case bandits or Mongols overtook him on the road.

“Where is this coming from?” Jin asked.

“Well, I can’t keep hiding you in  _ sake  _ barrels, can I?” Kenji replied indignantly. “You made  _ that  _ pretty clear. But I need  _ some  _ way to be safe on the road.”

It was decided that Kenji would learn to fight with a  _ bo  _ staff. Jin couldn’t acquire a sword for him and didn’t trust him to wield it properly anyway. He would only get himself killed and then, as Yuna argued, who would provide them with free  _ sake _ ?

Jin, although familiar with the weapon, did not think he would be the best teacher. Kenji didn’t seem to want to train with him anyway.

“I’ve seen how you fight, my lord,” Kenji said, raising his hands up in supplication. “No thank you.”

Luckily, Norio volunteered to train with Kenji. He was more adept with the  _ naginata _ , but he could wield a  _ bo  _ staff just as well. The two faced each other on the training grounds a few paces apart, each man’s staff in the starting position. Kenji looked terrified.

“Remember what I taught you,” Norio said, his voice calm, yet firm. “I’ll call out my attacks so you can block them.”

Kenji held out the  _ bo  _ in front of him in the starting position and tried to steel himself for Norio’s first attack.

“I almost can’t bear to watch,” Jin groaned.

“Shut up,” Yuna said, nudging him hard in the side with her elbow. “You’ll spoil it.”

Norio raised his staff and took a step toward Kenji, calling out his attack as he did so. Kenji made a half-hearted attempt to block the blow, but raised his staff too late. Norio knocked it out of his hand and Kenji stumbled backwards into the dirt. Yuna let out a loud “Ha!”

“Yuna,  _ stop _ ,” Jin chided. He clamped a hand over her mouth as she shook with laughter in his arms. He looked over to the training grounds and saw Kenji glaring at them. 

“We’ll go again,” Norio said, extending a hand to help Kenji up. “I didn’t expect you to get it on the first try.”

Kenji made an indignant noise, but stood again and picked up his staff.

“He’s going to beat him black and blue,” Jin groaned.

Yuna had finally calmed herself, but there was a grin on her face.

“Kenji  _ asked  _ for this,” she said.

“He did,” Jin replied. “But I don’t think he knew what he was in for.”

Norio came at him again, with the same exact attack. And again, Kenji fell into the dirt. Norio bit at his bottom lip, looking uneasy.

“You have to at least  _ try  _ to block,” Jin called out.

“That’s easy for you to say,” Kenji retorted, standing up and dusting himself off. “You don’t have a giant warrior monk running at you.”

“I’ve had Mongols running at me,” Jin said. “And I  _ blocked  _ them.”

Yuna was snorting unhelpfully beside him.

“Let’s try another tactic,” Norio said. “Instead of calling out my attack, I’ll call out when you need to block.”

Kenji nodded and gripped his staff again. He looked a little less scared than he had before, but Jin could still see that his grip was shaking. 

Norio readied and raised the  _ bo  _ to come at him. “Up!” he called. 

And Kenji obeyed. He raised the staff in a horizontal motion, blocking the attack. He stumbled a bit, but managed to stay upright.

“Ah!” Kenji called out triumphantly when he realized he was still standing. “I did it!”

“Now if only the bandits and Mongols would tell you exactly when to block their blows,” Yuna called out. “You’ll be set.”

The look on Kenji’s face made Jin snort. He tried to turn it into a cough, but it was too late. Yuna had seen.

“I knew you weren’t immune to the ridiculousness of this farce,” Yuna said, bumping the side of her hip against his. The subtle display of affection where Kenji and Norio might see sent a thrill down his spine. 

“He’s trying,” Jin protested. “We should be kinder to him.”

“I’m plenty kind to him,” Yuna said. “When he isn’t being stupid.”

Jin looked back out on the training grounds just in time to see Norio sweep Kenji off his feet again.

“He truly is awful at this,” Jin said. “Isn’t he?”

“Just the worst,” she agreed, smiling up at him.

“I feel like I should help.”

“You already told him he couldn’t hide you inside of things anymore,” Yuna said. “And that’s the best thing you can do for him.”

There was another triumphant cry from the training grounds. Kenji had managed to block another blow. And then another and another.

“He might not be entirely useless,” Jin mused.

“Now try to block on your own,” Norio instructed. “I think you’ve got it.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Yuna whispered.

Kenji went flying. Despite trying not to, Jin laughed right alongside Yuna.

“That’s enough for today,” Kenji decided, scowling at the two of them. Norio gave him an apologetic look and helped him off the ground.

“Yuna,” Kenji complained. “You are a bad influence on Lord Sakai.”

“I am no such thing,” she said, crossing her arms across her chest and grinning widely. “I’m sure Lord Sakai is grateful to have me around.”

She turned to Jin and waggled her eyebrows at him.

“Aren’t you, my lord?”

“I thank the Buddha for your presence every night,” Jin deadpanned.

“You see?” Yuna said, turning back to Kenji. 

“I don’t think ‘thanking the Buddha’ is what he’s doing with you every night,” Kenji muttered.

Jin felt his face flush hot. Too late, Kenji realized what he said and who he was talking about. He paled.

“I only meant…” he stuttered. “Forgive me!”

He dropped to his knees and planted his face into the ground. Before Jin could even say anything, Yuna broke out into fresh peals of laughter.

“No,” she said, wiping tears away from her eyes. “That certainly  _ isn’t _ what he’s doing with me every night.”

Jin wanted to sink into the ground.

“Get up, Kenji,” Yuna laughed. “Go away before you scandalize Lord Sakai even more.”

Kenji scrambled to his feet, almost bumping into Norio who looked as uncomfortable as Jin felt. Together, they took the  _ bo  _ staffs and hurried off. Yuna turned to Jin, cheese ruddy from laughing so hard.

“Oh, don’t be embarrassed, Jin,” she said, taking a step toward him. “I’m not.”

“I’ll never be able to look at him again,” Jin groaned. “Norio either.”

“Yes you will,” Yuna said, taking another step toward him. She was right on him now, much closer than was proper. She snaked her arms around his waist and Jin felt fresh blood rush to his cheeks. They’d never been so brazenly affectionate outside of the privacy of their room. Tentatively, he placed his hands on her hips. Yuna did not miss the significance of this

“Maybe I  _ am  _ a bad influence on you,” she said, grinning.

“You could stop,” Jin replied.

“I could,” she said. Then she lifted her chin and kissed him, not caring if anyone else was around. “But I won’t.”


	20. Day 20- One is Injured

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a direct sequel to Chapter 10. Have fun, kiddos.

“You’re trying to do too much,” Jin chided.

It had been weeks since they’d been surprised by that bear. Yuna’s injuries had begun to heal, but not quite fast enough for her taste. There was a constant dull pain in her chest that radiated out to her shoulder. 

“Washing the rice isn’t doing too much,” she spat, a little more hostile than she meant to. 

She sat by the side of the stream, cooking pot wedged between her knees as she swirled the rice around in the stream water. This was something so simple a child could do it. And yet even this was proving to be a daunting task.

She couldn’t ride Naoki, he couldn’t hunt, she couldn’t fight, and now she apparently couldn’t even handle dinner. She felt so useless and full of impotent rage at the fact that she was reduced to this.

The most infuriating part of the whole ordeal was Jin. He refused to leave her side for more than a day at a time while she was convalescing at the Cedar Temple. He needed to be on the move; there were still villages under Mongol control and the Shogun’s men would eventually catch onto the fact that he returned to the temple every night. Word of The Ghost’s presence was already spreading to the nearby villages. It was only a matter of time.

She argued with him, told him she would be in the good hands of the monks, but Jin wouldn’t listen. He let her raise her voice at him, let her call him names, but still he would return to her side every night to lay beside her and tend to her wounds. He was a sentimental fool and it would get him killed. Then Yuna would  _ really  _ be angry.

He crouched down beside her at the side of the stream and tried to gently take the bowl of rice away from her, but she snatched it back so hard she made herself wince.

“Let me help you, Yuna,” he implored.

“ _ You’re _ the one trying to do too much,” she said, turning away from him.

“It’s no trouble for me to help you make dinner,” he said.

“That’s not what I meant, Jin.”

Jin didn’t say anything. The only sound was the bubbling of the stream beside them and the  _ shk-shk _ of the rice in the pot as Yuna slowly polished it. Finally, Jin broke the silence in a low voice.

“I feel responsible,” he said. “For not spotting the bear in time.”

Yuna stiffened.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she said.

“I’m supposed to protect you.”

“You  _ did  _ protect me,” she said, turning toward him. His face was stoically calm, but she could see regret in his eyes. “Or did you forget that you killed that bear?”

“I didn’t forget,” he said, lowering his eyes to his hands.

“Then stop feeling guilty,” Yuna said. “So, you didn’t see the bear before it attacked? Neither did I. Do you think it’s my fault I was attacked?”

“Of course not.”

“It wasn’t your fault either,” she said. “It happened because the bear was hungry and we had the misfortune of passing by its den.”

Jin lifted his eyes from his hands and turned to Yuna. He looked lost.

“I keep thinking about what would have happened if you’d been alone,” he confessed. “If I hadn’t been there. You’d be dead now.”

“But you  _ were  _ there,” Yuna said emphatically. “And I’m fine.”

“Are you?” he asked. “Because you’re pushing yourself harder than you need to. It will take longer for you to heal.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk,” she scoffed. “How many times have you rushed into a fight before you were properly healed?”

Jin looked properly chastened and had the good sense not to argue with her.

“Besides,” she said. “I’m only pushing myself so hard for your sake.”

“How do you mean?”

“You won’t leave my side,” Yuna said. “Not even for one night. Do you know how dangerous that is? The  _ shogun’s  _ men will know of your whereabouts soon, and if they come it will mean trouble for Norio and the rest of the monks for harbouring a known fugitive. If you refuse to leave me here, then I need to travel with you. I won’t risk the lives of the people here because you are acting like a fool.”

“What if I leave you here and they come for you?” he asked. “The  _ shogun’s  _ offered a reward for your head too.”

“Then Norio will protect me,” Yuna replied. “You’ve seen the way he wields his  _ naginata _ . He took on a whole camp of Mongols on his own. He can handle a few  _ samurai _ .”

Jin started to protest, but Yuna cut him off.

“So many people on Tsushima rely on you for safety,” she continued. “That’s a heavy responsibility. You need to let your friends shoulder it for you when you can.”

Jin sighed.

“You trust Norio, yes?” Yuna asked.

“I do,” Jin answered. “As much as I trust you.”

“Then let him prove he is worthy of that trust,” she said. “Please.”

Yuna set the pot of rice on the ground and gingerly reached over to take hold of one of his hands.

“If something happens to you because you are worried about me,” she said softly. “I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. So please. Leave. Even if only for a few days. I promise I will be here when you return.”

Jin gave her a pained look, but squeezed her hand. 

“Alright,” he said. “I will leave, but only for a week.”

“A week is a good start,” she said with a smile. It would be better for him to be gone longer, but she hadn’t even expected him to acquiesce to  _ that _ .

“But you have to promise me you will take it slow,” he said, letting go of her hand to pick up the pot of rice. Yuna let him finish polishing it without complaint. “I don’t want to come back to see you’ve made your wounds worse.”

“Please,” Yuna said with a teasing smile. “With you gone, I’ll finally be able to relax and get some rest. I wouldn’t be surprised if you came back and I was fully healed.”

Jin chuckled and drained the water from the rice.


	21. Day 21- Kiss in the Rain

The storms seemed to follow Jin everywhere now. Yuna couldn’t say when she first noticed it, but now that she had it was undeniable. It was as if the heavens themselves were attuned to Jin’s moods. 

Yuna was, generally, not a religious woman. Neither the  _ kami  _ nor the Buddha had done her any favors in the 30-odd years she’d been alive so she didn’t put any stock in the powers they supposedly had. But Jin was almost fanatic in his need to honor every shrine, seen or unseen, on the island and he seemed to be rewarded for it. His stamina and resolve were unmatched by any warrior Yuna had ever seen and he had an almost supernatural ability to cheat death. This was in addition to his strange relationship to the fauna of Tsushima. And now the storms. 

Jin, however, took no notice of this. As devoted to honoring the shrines as he was, he outright refused to believe that there was anything preternatural happening with the animals and the storms. He took no stock in folktales or superstitions and would not even entertain the idea that any of this was out of the ordinary.

Perhaps, Yuna thought, if  _ she  _ were a little more pious, the  _ kami  _ would transfer their favor from Jin to her. Then they could have some damned sun for once. It had been raining for weeks. At this point, Yuna didn’t think she remembered what it was like to be dry.

They rode into the Kawachi Whaling Village at midday, though the sky was black as night. It had been winter the last time they were there and it was spring now, though it wasn’t any less miserable.The snow had melted away into mud and the downpour only made it worse. The horses were having a rough time of it in the morass, each step accompanied by a worrying squelch. Usually, they didn’t stop traveling until the evening, but Jin had agreed that the storm was too rough to continue their journey. 

Yuna dismounted from Naoki and led him toward the village inn while Jin and Kaze followed suit.

“I’ll handle the horses,” Jin said. “You speak with the innkeeper.”

Yuna nodded, splashing water from the edges of her wide  _ sandogasa  _ as she did so. She  _ hated  _ the rain.

The inn wasn’t much to look at from the outside and even less on the inside, but it was dry. The innkeeper and his wife eyed her warily as she opened the  _ shoji  _ door and stood at the entrance, but became a lot more accommodating when they saw she was a woman.

“My husband and I need a room for the evening,” she said. 

She and Jin were not married, but Yuna figured it might be easier to lie. An unmarried man and woman traveling together raised eyebrows and drew unwanted attention. The  _ shogun’s  _ men were looking for a  _ ronin  _ and a thief. They would certainly overlook an old married couple.

Jin came in shortly after Yuna did. The innkeeper’s wife took both his and Yuna’s  _ mino  _ and hung them outside on the veranda so they would not drip water on the floor. Not that it did much good, considering the rest of their clothes were soaked.

“Stay here,” the woman said. “I believe my husband and I have a spare set of  _ kimono  _ you can borrow for the evening. You and your husband look to be about the same size as we are. The fit should be just right.”

Jin raised his eyebrows at Yuna when he heard the woman call him Yuna’s husband but he said nothing. When the dry clothes arrived, they stripped down on the veranda and changed before heading inside. The innkeeper’s wife hung their clothes to dry at the hearth while the innkeeper brought them to their room.

“We’ll fold the  _ futon  _ out for you after the evening meal,” he said. “We only have  _ okayu _ .”

“That will be fine,” Jin said. “My wife and I are used to such fare.”

The innkeeper didn’t hear the emphasis Jin placed on the word “wife,” but Yuna did. The corner of her mouth quirked up and the innkeeper missed that too. He bowed to them both before shutting the door to their room and leaving them to their own devices.

“We’re married now, are we?” Jin asked, amused.

“Of course,” Yuna said nonchalantly. “It’s easier for a married couple to travel together without causing alarm.”

“You’ve traveled with me before,” Jin said. “We didn’t have to be married then.”

“I wasn’t fucking you before.”

Jin made a face at her language. She knew he liked to consider what they did in the dark making love. And sometimes it was. But sometimes it was just fucking. Yuna liked it either way. But what she liked best of all was the scandalized face Jin made when she was crass about it.

The room they were staying in had a  _ shoji  _ door that opened out onto the veranda that stretched around the inn. Jin turned and slid the door open, possibly to avoid Yuna’s gaze.

“I hope the rain lets up soon,” he said, looking out at the vista. 

The room overlooked the path leading toward the beach. Normally, it would be bustling with whalers and fishermen running to and fro, but it was absolutely devoid of anything but rain. Yuna had to admit, though, that it was picturesque in a melancholy sort of way. 

“I don’t think it will,” Yuna said, walking toward Jin. “It’s following us, you know.”

“Not this again.”

“I don’t know why you try to deny it,” she said. “Do you even remember the last time you saw the sun?”

As brilliant as Jin was, he could be very obtuse when he wanted to be. He answered her question with a noncommittal “tch” that didn’t actually answer anything.

“I’m just saying,” Yuna said, softening her voice and linking one of her arms through Jin’s. “Try to stop brooding every once in a while and see what happens.”

“Is that an order from my wife?” he asked.

“It is,” she said, tossing her head in an imitation of an overbearing wife.

“Then I suppose I will have to try.”

“Good,” Yuna said, inclining her head slightly to place a kiss on his cheek. “Then maybe this damned rain will finally let up.”

Jin rolled his eyes and chuckled, and as he did so, Yuna could have sworn she saw the strength of the storm outside lessen.


	22. Day 22- Blushing

Yuna found him in the marketplace, hunched over a set of expensive looking scrolls.

“Jin,” she called out to get his attention. 

She was taken aback as he seemed to jump about a foot into the air. Jin never allowed himself to be surprised. And he certainly wasn’t given to overt displays of shock like that.

“Yuna,” he said, hastily rolling up the scrolls and handing them back to the shop owner. “What is it? Is there trouble?”

“No,” she said, sowly. His whole demeanor was off. His face was bright red and he couldn’t meet her eye. She narrowed her eyes. “Is there trouble with  _ you _ ?”

“No,” he answered. “Why would there be?”

But Yuna didn’t believe him. She marched over to the stall he was at and confronted the shopkeeper.

“Let me see what he was looking at,” she demanded.

“My lady,” the shopkeeper demurred. “I don’t know that it is appropriate…”

“Give it to me,” she said, holding her hand out. The tone of her voice left no room for argument. Unnerved, the shopkeeper obeyed, handing her the set of scrolls Jin had been looking at.

“Yuna,  _ don’t _ ,” Jin said, trying to stop her, but she ignored him and unrolled the first one.

“Well,” she said in a breathy voice after a beat. “I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this.”

It was an art scroll, beautifully colored in inks of varying hues. But what shocked her was the subject matter. Instead of the usual scenes of mountain vistas or forests, the scroll showed a man and a woman intertwined with each other. At first glance, the couple seemed to be locked only in a particularly passionate embrace, but at the place their bodies met, Yuna could see flashes of skin and hair, leaving very little doubt as to what they were doing.

The next scroll left even less to the imagination. The woman was nearly naked, save for her kimono hanging on by just her sleeves. Her partner was behind her, groping at her breasts and as he prepared to enter her. Their genitals were large and exaggerated, clearly the main focus of the print.

“Are they all like this?” Yuna said, tearing her eyes away from the scroll. Jin’s blush had crept down his neck and under the collar of his travelling attire. He seemed to be very interested in a spot on the ground near his feet.

“Just those in your hands,” the shopkeeper said. He looked uncertain, as if he wasn’t sure if Yuna would make a scene or not.

“... How much will you take for them?” Yuna asked after a beat.

Jin’s eyes shot up to meet hers, eyebrows raised almost to his hairline.

“They are imported from Kyoto, my lady,” the shopkeeper stammered.

“I didn’t ask that,” Yuna said, turning back to him. “I asked the cost.”

Jin stood there dumbfounded as Yuna haggled with the merchant. She managed to get him to agree to part with four of them for much less than he would have liked. But Yuna was persistent and always got what she wanted. And she wanted these scrolls.

“Come, Jin,” she said, once the merchant had wrapped her purchase in a  _ furoshiki  _ cloth for privacy. “I know a much more private place to look at these than the marketplace.”

Dumbstruck and still blushing, Jin silently followed her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They're looking at shunga prints which didn't really become popular until the Edo period, but shut up, let me have this.
> 
> Also, this chapter was VERY short, but that's because the chapter tomorrow comes immediately after it. 👀


	23. Day 23- Hot and Heavy

Yuna found a dark, secluded shack on the outskirts of town. She instructed Jin to light the  _ andon  _ as she spread the four scrolls down on the floor. They were absolutely  _ filthy _ .

“Why did you buy those?” Jin finally said, breaking his mortified silence.

“Because I wanted to,” she answered matter-of-factly. “Why were  _ you  _ looking at them?”

Jin couldn’t give her an answer. Yuna laughed at him.

“You’re acting like a blushing virgin,” she teased. “I don’t know why. I know for a fact you’ve done  _ that _ . I was there.”

She pointed at the painting of the man and woman lying on their sides as he made to fuck her from behind.

“Or do you not remember that cave in Kamiagata?”

It had been a cold winter’s night and they had been out in a snowstorm. She’d found the smuggler’s cave and told him a fantastical story about the Yuki-Onna so she’d have an excuse to press up against him in the night. It had gone  _ very _ well for her.

“I remember,” Jin answered huskily.

“Then stop acting like a maiden and come sit,” she said, patting the ground next to her. “You were very anxious to see these back at the market. You can take all the time you want to look at them now.”

She had eschewed the first scroll she’d looked at in favor of the second one and three more that were much more explicit. The men and women depicted were in varying states of undress, limbs contorted at unnatural angles as they wrapped themselves around each other. Yuna could feel her blood grow hot as she looked, and she could almost feel the arousal radiating off of Jin as he sat next to her.

“This one,” she said, voice low as she pointed to one of the scrolls. “Looks achievable.”

The woman and man were fully clothed from the waist up. She was on all fours, her face pressed into the tatami mats, her ass hovering up at the man’s waist. He was kneeling behind her, back pressed against hers as he took her from behind. One of his hands was buried in the collar of her kimono, groping at a breast. The other was hidden between her legs. Their hair was disheveled and their faces rapturous. 

Jin was breathing hard next to her and his knuckles were white as he clenched at his knees. She could see where the fabric of his  _ hakama  _ had already tented at the crotch.

“What do you think?” she asked coyly.

“I think,” Jin said slowly. “That I’m glad you caught me looking at these.”

Yuna’s laugh turned into a low moan as Jin went over to her. He kissed roughly at her throat, slipping his hands into the waistband of her  _ monpe _ . She was already so wet that his finger slipped inside her easily. He rubbed his thumb against her in practiced motions as he thrust a second and third finger into her. She squeezed around them and she heard him make an undignified noise into her throat.

He slipped his hands out and undid the tie of his  _ hakama _ . He started to remove his kimono as well, but Yuna  _ stopped  _ him.

“Like the scroll,” she said, gesturing toward the half-clothed man and woman.

Nodding, he unraveled his  _ fundoshi  _ and hiked his  _ kimono  _ up to his stomach, leaving himself bare from the waist down. His cock was pink and leaking already. He made quick work of removing Yuna’s  _ monpe _ . Her  _ yukata  _ was already so short that he didn’t need to push it up any further. He kissed her fiercely on the mouth, rutting up against her as he did so before pulling away and flipping her over onto her stomach.

He didn’t give her much warning as he lifted her hips and pressed into her. His fingers gripped hard at her waist as he adjusted to her slick tightness for a moment. Then he moved. Yuna pushed her top half against the ground, using the leverage to push back up against Jin’s hips as they snapped against hers. He was being rougher than he normally was with her and Yuna shivered delightfully.

When he established the pace, he snaked one of his arms around her waist, moving his hand down to rub at the place their bodies met. With his other hand, he reached around and wrenched open the collar of her  _ yukata _ , exposing her breasts. He groped at one, rolling the nipple between his fingers as he fucked into her. Yuna made a keening noise with each snap of his hips. She could feel her peak coming and howled when it did.

She lay panting as Jin thrust into her three, four, five more times. Then he came with a cry that rivaled Yuna’s. He lay hunched over her back, breathing heavily, skin shining with sweat. Yuna lay under him, completely boneless and spent. He pulled out of her with a hiss and he could feel the slick of him leaking from her. She lowered her hips to the ground and slowly rolled over onto her back. She watched Jin with heavily lidded eyes as he stood on shaky legs to retrieve a rag to wipe them both clean.

He was as gentle with her as he had been rough as he ran the rag over her before tossing it aside and laying down next to her. He threw an arm across her stomach and Yuna snuggled in close to him.

“I hope you learned your lesson,” Yuna said.

“Hnn?” 

“The next time you want to look at dirty pictures in the marketplace,” she said with a yawn. “You’ll make sure I’m there with you.”


	24. Day 24- Shoulder Kisses

Yuna hurriedly finished scrubbing the dirt off of her body, skin prickling in the chilly air. She tensed as she doused herself with ice cold water and then hopped into the  _ onsen _ . She sighed as she sank into the water, the heat sinking into her bones and warming her from the inside out. She closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the rocks encircling the spring. She needed this.

“How’s the water?” Jin asked. He was still off to the side, scrubbing himself clean. Yuna opened her eyes and glanced at him. His skin was prickling in the cool air too, but he didn’t seem to mind it as much. 

“Hot,” she said. “It’s nice.”

Jin graced her with a smile before dousing himself clean. Then, he sank gingerly into the water alongside her. He hissed as he did so, as if the juxtaposition of the cool air and hot water was too much to bear. But then he relaxed to, quickly growing accustomed to the heat.

They sat in a companionable silence for a while, letting the healing waters of the spring work their magic. Yuna watched Jin as he sat lost in thought. Not for the first time, she wondered what went through his head when he sat there with his eyes closed. She wanted to ask him, but doing so felt irreverent. He’d break the silence when he was ready; Yuna wouldn’t draw him out of his thoughts before then.

She let her own thoughts drift away like the wind through the branches of the red maple hanging over them. They rarely had time to relax anymore. Not that Yuna had ever had much time for that to begin with. She had spent all of her life scrounging for survival. This was just more of the same, although the stakes were much higher.

She let the gentle bubbling of the water take over as she closed her eyes again. She felt the water soak into her muscles, releasing tension she didn’t realize she’d been holding. Finally, she heard Jin start to shift in the water next to her and she knew he had come out of his reverie.

“I can see why you enjoy  _ onsen  _ so much,” Yuna said, smiling with her eyes closed.

“The water has its benefits,” Jin replied. 

She heard the water splash softly and then felt his presence beside her, arms and thighs pressing together under the water. She shifted against him, moving subtly but deliberately, encouraging him to snake an arm around her. She was pleased when he did.

“I wish we’d brought  _ sake _ ,” she said, settling against his shoulder. “We could have warmed it here in the spring.”

“Then Kenji would have insisted on coming along with us,” Jin replied. “Would you have liked that?”

“ _ Bah _ ,” Yuna said dismissively as Jin chuckled. “He’s too loud. It would have ruined the mood.”

“Who knows,” Jin mused. “Maybe the waters would do him some good. They do have a calming effect.”

“If you decide to bring Kenji with you next time,” Yuna said, opening her eyes and fixing him with an annoyed look. “I’m not coming.”

“More  _ sake  _ for me, then” Jin said with a straight face. Yuna couldn’t help but splash water in it. She grinned as he sputtered and rubbed the water from his eyes.

They spent the afternoon soaking in the warmth of the springs until they were both waterlogged and pruny. Yuna half expected to find other visitors to the hot spring with how long they stayed, but no one came. She supposed that the people of Tsushima had too much to worry about with bandits and Mongol stragglers roaming the roads that they didn’t have time to spare to visit the  _ onsen _ . Not that Yuna was complaining. It had been nice not to be bothered for an afternoon.

“I suppose we’d better head back,” Jin finally said reluctantly. The sun was still out, but was creeping lower in the sky. Dusk was not far off and after that, night. Jin wanted to be back in town before then.

It was difficult to get out of the onsen. The sky had grown colder and the sun, while still bathing them in golden light, wasn’t doing much to warm the air around them. Yuna knew they couldn’t stay in forever, as much as she would have liked to.

Jin got out first, shaking the water off of him as he did so. With a sigh, Yuna followed. 

“ _ Shit _ ,” she hissed, wrapping her arms across her chest as she padded over to her clothes. “It’s  _ cold _ .”

Jin was drying himself off with a spare cloak he’d brought along. When he saw the look on Yuna’s face, he laughed and held the cloak out to her.

“I’m mostly dry,” he said. “You need this more than I do.

Yuna snatched the cloak away and wrapped it around herself. She should have been drying herself off, but she stood and watched as Jin dressed himself. The smooth skin of his back was marred by ugly scars and they stood out in the dying sunlight. She knew he had other scars too, marks on his chest, a deep cut on his cheek, healed-over gashes on his thighs. She would trace her fingers over them in the dark sometimes as they lay together.

It amazed her sometimes to think about how much Jin had gone through. Any one of his many wounds would have taken down a lesser man, but Jin fought through them as fiercely as he fought The Mongols. The peasants believed he truly was a ghost with as much abuse his body took. If Yuna hadn’t been the one to start the rumor, she might have believed it herself.

Hugging the cloak around her, she walked up behind Jin just as he hitched his  _ monpe  _ around his waist. Before he could shrug on his top, Yuna wrapped her arms around him from behind and placed a kiss onto one scarred shoulder. She felt Jin stiffen in her arms for a moment before relaxing again.

“Your lips are cold,” he said.

“My  _ everything  _ is cold.”

“You should get dressed,” he said. 

“I know,” she answered. “And I will. Just. Let me hold you for a moment longer.”

Jin turned in her arms so that she was facing his chest and held her too until she started shivering even wrapped in the cloak.

“Come, Yuna,” he said gently. “Get dressed and let’s head back to town. You’ll catch your death in the cold. There will be a warm fire waiting for us at the inn.”

“And an even warmer  _ futon _ , I hope,” she said.

“I’m sure we can find a way to warm it up if it isn’t,” Jin replied. Yuna grinned.


	25. Day 25- Getting Dressed Up

When she saw the state of the Dawn Refuge, Masako had grown furious.

“Holes in the roof, holes in the wall, holes in the floor,” she fussed. “You’ve survived the Mongols only to die from a chill once winter comes.”

Jin looked like a little boy again under Masako’s matronly wrath. Yuna had to turn her head in order to hide her smile, but Lady Adachi had not missed it.

“And you’re letting him live like this?” she asked, turning her ire on Yuna.

“He’s a grown man,” Yuna retorted. “He can live how he likes.”

Jin nudged her in the side with his elbow, glaring at her for speaking to Masako that way, but Yuna paid him no mind.

“Tch,” Masako tutted. “You’re not sleeping here another night. Neither of you are.”

Jin had tried to argue with her, but the venerable Lady Adachi got her way in the end. Their horses were packed and on the way to the Adachi estate in no time. They got there just as the sun went down.

“We can’t stay here long,” Jin reminded her. It wasn’t a complaint--he knew better than to try that with Masako. “It’s dangerous for you to harbor us here for more than a night or two.”

“You’ll stay here until your house is fixed up,” Masako said in a tone that left no room for argument. 

“I don’t want to draw attention to it,” Jin replied. “It’s meant to be a hideout.”

“My builders will never know it is for you,” she said with finality. “They’ll be done before the week is up.”

Yuna hadn’t interacted with Masako much apart from battle. However, she found that she was rapidly growing to like the woman. She wasn’t afraid to speak her mind and put men in their place. If Tsushima had more noble ladies like Masako Adachi, perhaps the  _ samurai  _ would not have been so useless.

Masako had baths drawn for them before dinner was served. She wouldn’t let them re-don their ratty clothes. Instead, she’d pulled out some old  _ kimono  _ that had belonged to her sons and their wives. Jin tried to refuse them, but Masako insisted.

“No one else is using them,” she said stiffly.

Jin chose a subdued forest green kimono with white geometric motifs around the bottom hem and salmon colored accents. It was made of cotton and hung a little loosely on his shoulders (the Adachi boys had always been bigger than he had been), but otherwise it fit fine. It felt good to be in clean clothes for once instead of ones that were frayed and splattered with mud and blood.

Yuna emerged after some time, wearing a deep blue  _ kimono _ . It was fancier than Jin’s, made of silk and covered in an intricate embroidered pattern of rippling water, lotuses, and ducks. Her hair was washed and combed, pulled back at the nape of her neck instead of her usual style. It was the first time Jin had seen her outside of her usual attire and she was stunning.

Yuna noticed the look on his face and shot him a smug smile before giving Masako a bow.

“Thank you for the clothes,” she said. “And the bath.”

“I won’t have anyone saying the last of Clan Adachi was lacking in hospitality,” she said, although there was a softness to her forceful voice. “I’m glad to see the  _ kimono  _ in use.”

Masako only had one servant, Mai, although Jin knew that she was more to Masako than that. Now that her husband and family were gone, Masako was alone but for Mai. She was now free to live openly with her lover without having to hide. Out of all of the unspeakable tragedy, Jin was glad that Masako had gotten at least this one comfort from it.

Mai brought out the evening meal, white rice with grilled saury, vegetables, and hot soup. Masako pressed Jin and Yuna to eat their fill without worrying about the imposition

“You’re so thin,” she griped as she instructed Mai to fill Jin’s bowl with a second serving of rice. “You need to be sure you are eating or your strength will fail you.”

Yuna grinned at Jin over the rim of her bowl as she drank down the hot soup. Jin was annoyed at Masako fretting over him, but he endured it. She was used to having a whole household to run, full of children and grandchildren to watch over. And now she had no one. Lady Adachi had done so much for him that Jin would gladly be a stand-in for her sons, if only for a little while.

After dinner, they started drinking and continued to drink well into the night. Masako told stories of Jin as a boy and the trouble he used to get into with her sons. In truth, he hadn’t spent as much time with them as he had with Ryuzo growing up, but there were more than enough antics to recount in order to fill the time. 

They didn’t retire until the hour of the rat when Masako’s voice had taken on a wistful tone and her eyes began to shine with tears as she thought of her sons. Mai suggested gently that their guests might be tired and led her lady away for the evening as Jin and Yuna made their way to the guest room where a large  _ futon  _ had been rolled out on the floor for them to share. Masako had not asked the nature of their relationship, but she was no fool.

“We should come here more often,” Yuna said. “It’s good to see you chastened every so often by someone who  _ isn’t  _ me.”

She slipped out of the silk  _ kimono  _ and into a light blue cotton one to sleep in. Jin watched the lines of her body, appreciating the more feminine outline the  _ kimono  _ gave her. Jin thought Yuna would be beautiful no matter what she wore, but seeing her dressed in silk had been a treat. The  _ kimono  _ had belonged to the wife of a  _ samurai  _ and it suited her. If Jin had the means and titles to make her his wife, Yuna would be as Masako had been in her younger days: beautiful, headstrong, and fierce.

Of course, Yuna didn’t need a title to be all of those things, nor did she need silk robes. She might not even want them. But it was a nice dream to have.

“Masako has been so kind to us,” Jin said as he slipped into the  _ futon _ . “She’s lonely without her family.”

“I can imagine,” Yuna said, slipping into the  _ futon  _ to lay beside him. She rolled on her side, propping her head up on her elbow as she looked down at him. “All of these empty rooms full of ghosts. I don’t know that I could stay here alone if I were her.”

“Where else would she go?” Jin asked. “This is her home.”

“Anywhere,” Yuna answered. 

Jin was silent for a while, lying on his back, looking up at the ceiling. Yuna sighed and lay her head down on Jin’s chest and his arm immediately came up to wrap around her shoulders.

“We’ll have to thank her for fixing up the Dawn Refuge,” Yuna said after a time. “Maybe return the hospitality when the work is finished.”

Jin chuckled, the sound vibrating through his chest. The idea of the three of them--four counting Mai-- squeezed into that shack, drinking Kenji’s “finest” was amusing to him, even with the holes patched up. But it was not altogether a ridiculous idea.

“She might like that,” he agreed. 

“We can make a party of it,” Yuna continued. “Invite Ishikawa and Norio too.”

“And Kenji,” Jin suggested.

“Yes, I suppose someone needs to bring the  _ sake _ ,” she huffed. 

“It will be crowded,” Jin said.

“It will be  _ fun _ ,” Yuna corrected. “I think Lady Adachi will enjoy the ruckus.”

“You think so?”

“I do,” Yuna said confidently. 

“Perhaps you’re right,” Jin said with a yawn.

“I’m always right.”

Jin hummed in agreement. He was too full of  _ sake  _ and tired to argue with her, even in jest.

“The work should be done in a week,” he said. “We would only need a few days after that to get everything in order wouldn’t we?”

“Two, three,” Yuna said. “No more than that.”

“Then it’s settled,” Jin said, yawning again. “We’ll send word to everyone when the repairs are finished.”

Yuna smiled in the darkness.

“Now let’s sleep,” he said. “Before you decide to throw a party for someone else.”

“The shogun next,” she teased. “Get him drunk enough and he’ll be sure to pardon you.”

Jin groaned.


	26. Day 26- Dancing

They snuck into Omi village in the cover of darkness. Yuna protested, saying that there was so much commotion that no one would notice if they came any earlier, but Jin wouldn’t have it. Too many people knew his face there. He had grown up in the village and he knew people still held clan Sakai in high regard, but he also knew the  _ shogun’s  _ men could be anywhere and he wouldn’t risk it. He’d even gone so far as to get masks for the both of them to further conceal their identity. Yuna hadn’t argued about that too much, though. It was  _ obon _ and nearly everyone was wearing a mask.

They wove through the crowded streets, Jin in a ridiculous  _ hyottoko  _ mask and Yuna in an equally ridiculous  _ okame  _ one. Jin had tried to wear the broken  _ kitsune  _ mask he’d acquired from Tomoe, but Yuna wouldn’t let him wear a memento from another woman. Kenji had purchased these on Jin’s behalf earlier that day and he was glad he’d chosen something so outlandish. No one would expect The Ghost to be wearing something so silly.

Omi village was lit up with colorful lanterns strung up from every rooftop the eye could see. Music and laughter rang through the air and it did Jin’s heart good to hear it. It had been too long since the people of Tsushima had felt safe enough to hold a festival; they hadn’t wanted to draw the eye of the Mongols to them. Jin didn’t blame them. He knew firsthand the atrocities they could wreak on innocent villagers. Holding a festival would have been suicide.

It had been a year since Jin killed Khotun Khan and drove the Mongols out of the island, however. The commoners didn’t care about the  _ shogun’s  _ political squabbles, so their lives returned to normal rather quickly after the immediate threat of invasion was gone. Babies were born, the elderly died, and life went onwards as it always did in times of peace. 

They’d come to Omi village specifically for the  _ obon _ festival. For too long, Jin had been living with the guilt of seeing his father murdered and doing nothing to help and he was ready to let that guilt go. It had been Yuna who suggested honoring his spirit at  _ bon _ . At first, he’d thought it was silly; he’d honored his father’s spirit at the festival many times in his youth and young adulthood. But the more he thought about it, the more he felt like it might be a good idea. He was a new man now and it was time for him to face the ghosts of his past.

They walked through the village roads, meandering slowly as they took in the sights and sounds of the festival around them. Though it was a festival to honor the dead, the mood was boisterous and rowdy. Musicians played from a platform in the village square, pounding on  _ taiko _ , plucking  _ biwa  _ strings, and blowing sweet melodies through  _ shakuhachi _ . Dancers formed a circle around the platform, weaving to and fro, hands in the air, clapping and waving in time to the music. Each village had its own  _ odori  _ and Jin knew the steps to this one by heart. As a boy, he had danced these steps many times with his father in honor of his mother’s memory. 

“It looks fun,” Yuna said, voice muffled through her mask. “The steps are different in Yarikawa, but it looks easy enough to pick up.”

“I’ll teach you,” Jin said. “But not yet. I’d like to visit my father’s grave first.”

With Yuriko’s passing and the disbanding of Clan Sakai, Jin’s family estate had fallen into disrepair. He knew it was only a matter of time before the  _ shogun  _ sent some mainland  _ samurai  _ out to serve as lords of the island, but bureaucracy was notoriously slow. So far, only Lord Oga had been appointed as  _ jito  _ of Tsushima, but none of the other ancestral seats had been filled. The Sakai estate lay abandoned and dark, slowly falling into disrepair as no one was there to manage the upkeep.

The graveyard was overgrown, but not hopelessly so. He could come back another day and clean it if he wanted to. Yuna would probably help him the way he’d helped her with Taka’s grave. But he didn’t know if he wanted to risk coming back, especially knowing that another Clan would one day inhabit these grounds. Instead, he focused on the grave he’d come specifically to see.

After removing his mask, he knelt in front of Kazumasa Sakai’s grave while Yuna hung back. He clapped his hands together in supplication and brought them to his forehead. Then he bowed low, pressing his face to the ground in front of the grave.

“I’m sorry I didn’t help you, father,” Jin said. “I was a boy and I was afraid.”

He’d never spoken these words aloud to anyone. He’d hidden them deep inside of him, hoping that if he trained enough, if he could become strong enough, he wouldn’t feel the guilt anymore. 

“I haven’t lived up to your legacy,” Jin continued. “I am no longer  _ samurai _ . I’ve killed the only family member I have left. But I did what I had to do.”

He didn’t go into it further than that. His father could see from wherever his spirit was. He’d witnessed all of it already. He was, after all, the wind at his back.

“I’m sorry I’ve neglected my duties,” he said. “I don’t know that I’ll be able to come here again, so I hope tonight will suffice.”

He sat up and turned to Yuna who took her cue to walk toward him. Silently, they washed his father’s grave and lit a stick of incense as an offering. The wind wafted the scent up towards the full moon and Jin felt at peace. After a time, they stood up and donned their masks again. The heaviness that weighed on Jin seemed to get lighter and lighter as they left the estate and headed back down to the village. By the time they’d gotten to the square, he felt like he was floating.

“Did you still want to dance?” he asked Yuna.

“If you still want to teach me,” she answered

Jin bent his knees, finding the rhythm of the music. Yuna mirrored his pose, swaying in time with him as he showed her the steps. It hadn’t been that different from Yarikawa’s  _ odori  _ at all; she picked it up quickly. They joined the circle of dancers around the podium, letting themselves melt into the atmosphere of the festivities. It was the first time in a long while that Jin felt truly at peace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look up the Obon festival and the bon odori. It's pretty neat!


	27. Day 27- Falling Asleep Together

Jin is quiet. Granted, Jin is quiet most of the time; he’s one of the few men Yuna has known in her life that doesn’t constantly boast about himself. But he’s been quiet for a  _ long _ time and that is worrisome.

“Jin?” she calls out. 

She does not receive an answer. Frowning, she gets up from where she is weaving together a bamboo cricket cage and goes to find Jin. The Dawn Refuge isn’t big, there’s something wrong if he can’t hear her.

She finds him hunched over the table where he cares for his swords and writes his correspondence. There is a scroll laid out in front of him as well as a brush and ink. At first she thinks he’s lost in thought over the correct word to use, but then she sees the brush has fallen from his hand. 

“Jin?” she asks softly.

He responds with a snore.

He’s exhausted. They all are, really. But Jin pushes himself harder than the lot of them. Yuna has spoken with him about it on multiple occasions, made him promise to go easier on himself, and he said he would. But Yuna thinks he’s just gotten better at hiding how much he does from her. The thought makes her momentarily angry.

Although, she supposes she shouldn’t be angry with him. No one else in Japan seems to care for the people of Tsushima the way Jin does. Even before he’d been declared a traitor, the remaining  _ samurai  _ on Tsushima didn’t want to help him and the  _ shogun  _ refused to send in reinforcements to aid him in the fight. If Jin hadn’t taken on as much as he had, they would be under Mongol rule right now, and the mainland would have fallen shortly after.

_ Damn them all, _ she thinks.  _ They would have deserved what the Khan had in store for them. _

She wants to let him sleep, but knows he won’t be fully rested sitting upright like that. Plus, she’s pretty sure he’s going to smear the ink on his letter and then he’ll be cross when he wakes up. So, Yuna creeps to his side and gently shakes him awake.

Jin blinks, eyes dazed and unfocused as he tries to get his bearings. It strikes Yuna how young he is, how unfair it is that he has to shoulder the weight of this yoke on his own, and she feels a sharp stab of affection through her heart. She helps when she can, but she knows it feels differently for him. He is responsible for taking care of the whole island. Yuna is only responsible for taking care of him.

“Come lie down,” she says softly.

For a moment, she thinks he’ll argue. He is in the middle of correspondence and there’s so much still left to do before nightfall. But to her surprise, he doesn’t. He lets her help him up and lead him over to the  _ futon  _ where he collapses into an exhausted heap. He doesn’t even bother pulling his armor off, so Yuna does it for him.

Then, she lays down beside him. The sun is still high in the sky and there are hours before nightfall, but Jin needs this and she needs it too. She pulls the  _ futon  _ covers up around them and wraps herself around his body. Jin feels so frail in her arms, although Yuna knows firsthand that he is not. She listens to his heartbeat and finds that it is surprisingly easy to drift off to sleep alongside him. Whatever duties they have can wait until they’ve gotten their well-deserved rest.


	28. Day 28- Flirting

Masako’s men were still in the process of repairing the Dawn Refuge and she hadn’t let Jin and Yuna leave yet. Yuna was in no rush; the Adachi Estate was much more comfortable than Jin’s hut. But she could tell Jin was becoming more and more restless as the longer they stayed. It hadn’t even been a full week and he was ready to move on. He didn’t want their presence to put a target on Masako’s back.

Yuna found ways to distract him. The best way, of course, was fucking. But it was not feasible to do that all the time, especially under the watchful eye of Lady Adachi. The next best thing was sparring, and that was the method Yuna utilized most.

They faced each other on the sparring grounds of the Adachi Estate, each clutching a wooden  _ bokken _ in their hands. They’d been at it for a while now and had worked up a sweat in the cool autumn air. Yuna was growing tired; she was more adept with her bow than her sword and her arms were growing tired. But Jin seemed to have an endless fountain of stamina and looked as if he could go on for hours longer.

“Are you ready to quit?” he called out to her, a grin on his face. His blood was pumping now and the battle lust was on him, even though they were only fighting with training swords.

“Not yet,” Yuna answered. She still had some fight left in her. She wouldn’t give Jin the satisfaction of admitting defeat before they even started.

Jin said nothing as he watched her and she watched him. They were still for a moment, standing off like Yuna had seen him do to enemies many times before. He was the one who attacked first, pushing off with his left foot and stomping toward her with his right. He swung his sword down hard and Yuna met his  _ bokken  _ with her own. Before she had time to gloat, he flicked his wrists, the sword coming at her side. She didn’t twirl away fast enough and let out a small “oof” as he connected with her.

“Dead,” Jin said.

Yuna frowned and stepped back, bringing the  _ bokken  _ back to the starting position. This time, she lunged first, but Jin was ready for her. He managed to not only block her blow but land another of his own against her arm.

“Dead,” he repeated.

“Not dead,” Yuna corrected. “Just missing an arm.”

“You’d be dead soon,” Jin said. “You’d fall to the ground and I’d be on you in seconds.”

“Is that a promise?” She asked, giving Jin a wink. 

He answered her with hungry eyes and a crooked smile that made Yuna’s stomach flutter.

She came at him again, pirouetting out of the way as he deflected her blow and went in for a counter attack. He missed and she twirled behind him, hitting him square between the shoulder blades with her  _ bokken _ .

“Dead,” she said, smugly.

He didn’t even wait for her to get back into the starting position. He whirled on her, coming after with a flurry of blows that she managed to parry at the last second at the cost of losing ground. He pushed her slowly backwards to the edge of the sparring ring. 

“Does stepping out of the line mean I’m dead?” she asked.

“No,” he replied. “But it does mean I win.”

“We can’t have that,” Yuna teased. “Can we?”

With a quick burst, Yuna slammed the hilt of her bokken against his, pushing him back. Jin braced himself and would have managed to stay up had Yuna not decided to play dirty. When she met his resistance, she leaned her head forward, placing a quick and unexpected kiss on his lips. As she did so, she insinuated one of her legs between his and hooked it around the back of his knee. 

As they parted, he lost his balance and tripped, falling to land flat on his bottom. Yuna swung her  _ bokken  _ around, stopping as the end pointed at his neck.

“Dead,” she said.

“You cheated.”

“You’re still dead.”

Jin cracked a smile, then kicked his foot out, sending Yuna tumbling to the ground after him.

“Dead,” he said with a grin. Yuna rolled her eyes.


	29. Day 29- Protecting Each Other

Yuna crouched in the pampas grass, staying on the perimeter of the Straw Hats as they walked up the road. There were not many of them left, especially after Ryuzo’s death. The ones that remained, however, had been fiercely loyal and knew that Jin was the one responsible for leaving them leaderless.

“Umugi Cove is full of pirates,” one said.

“I’m not frightened of pirates,” another replied.

“But these pirates are loyal to The Ghost,” the first one continued. “I do not think they will give him up easily.”

“Then we give them hell,” a third Straw Hat said. “Like Ryuzo would have done.”

_ Ryuzo is not who you should aspire to be _ , Yuna thought to herself as she watched them.  _ Especially after he crossed Jin. _

“We might not have to fight them,” the first voice said. “It was only a rumor that The Ghost was even there at all.”

“You sound too eager to get out of this fight, Jiro,” one of the men said. “Are you losing your nerve?”

“No,” the one called Jiro answered, a bit too hastily. 

“Good. Now shut up and keep walking.”

Jin had let many people see him traveling to Umugi Cove, but he was not there. He was in the grass on the other side of the road, lying in wait as Yuna was. He’d heard rumblings from all over the island that the remaining Straw Hat Ronin were on the hunt for him and he’d had many plans to draw them out in the open.Yuna knew that Jin had hoped for a larger group than these five men walking slowly along the road, but he would have to take what he could get. Taking them out now would be five less men he would have to worry about later.

Yuna let the Straw Hats move a little farther up the road before standing up and knocking an arrow in her bow. The one called Jiro was straggling in the back, an easy target in the darkness. She drew the bow to her ear and aimed toward the back of his neck. His hat would make things a little more difficult, but she knew her arrows would easily cut through the straw.

He fell forward with a gurgle as her arrow speared his throat. His compatriots turned to look at him, but Yuna was already hidden again in the pampas grass. The  _ ronin  _ drew their swords and whirled wildly around in the dark looking for the source of the arrow. But Yuna was on the move, just as she knew Jin was on the other side of the road.

“Spread out,” the biggest of the Straw Hats said. “Someone’s out there.”

The four remaining straw hats crouched low, holding their  _ katana  _ out in front of them, on guard. They each fanned out in a different direction, making it difficult to get the drop on any of them. But Jin and Yuna were practiced at this; if anyone could do it, they could. Never taking her eyes off of them, Yuna reached down by her feet and pulled up a clod of dirt. She threw it as well as she could without standing up and giving away her position. When it landed, the straw hats whirled toward the noise and she was able to draw her bow. Jin had the same idea, as two of them dropped instead of one.

“How many of them are there?” the smaller of the two asked, panic rising in his voice.

“Come out and fight, you cowards!” the other called out.

Yuna went to knock another arrow when suddenly Jin stood up, exposing his position to the two men. Yuna groaned. She supposed old habits were hard for him to break.

Jin drew his sword and took a menacing step forward toward the closest of the ronin.  _ Yuna  _ could see the smaller one trembling as Jin advanced. That meant he wasn’t in control of himself and Yuna could use that to her advantage.

She dropped her bow and pulled out the  _ tanto  _ Jin had given her. The blade was wicked and sharp and gleamed deadly in the moonlight. Keeping low, she nearly crawled across the ground in order to position herself behind him. She took her eyes off of him only for a moment to lock eyes with Jin. Then together, they attacked. She brought her blade around to the man’s throat and slit it open before he even knew she was there. As she did so, Jin’s  _ katana  _ flashed like lightning and the Straw Hat before him fell to the ground twitching. Jin ran the tip of his blade through his body and the twitching stopped.

“They’re getting desperate,” Yuna said as she crouched down to wipe her  _ tanto  _ off on the dead man’s  _ hakama _ . “These last few groups they’ve sent haven’t put up much of a fight.”

“I don’t think they have much of a choice,” Jin replied, flicking the blood off of his  _ katana  _ and sheathing it. “There can’t be very many of them left.”

“We’ll be ready for them when they come,” Yuna said.

Jin nodded and then gave a low whistle. Naoki and Kaze came galloping out of their hiding places in the grass toward them.

“Where to?” Yuna asked as they mounted.

“Umugi Cove,” Jin replied. “We’ll let Lady Sanjo know more men may be on their way.”

“She’ll be cross with you,” Yuna teased.

“Her men can handle whatever the Straw Hats send her way,” Jin answered. “Besides, I plan on leading some of them to Iijima next.”

“Keep them confused,” Yuna said. “I like it.”

Jin grinned at her in the moonlight and clicked his tongue, setting Kaze off at a brisk pace and Yuna followed him, kicking up dirt behind them both in the darkness.


	30. Day 30- Date Night

Five years had passed since Jin drove the Mongols from the shores of Tsushima and the  _ shogun’s  _ men started hunting him. It had been a hard five years, especially toward the beginning. Being on the run constantly had taken a toll on him which was apparent in the new grey hairs he had sprouting at his temples. He felt like he’d aged a decade since it all started.

It  _ had  _ gotten easier, though. The people of Tsushima never forgot what The Ghost did for them. When the  _ shogun  _ sent a new  _ jito  _ to replace Lord Shimura and started doling out estates to mainland  _ samurai _ , no one sold him out, though the reward for his head had been worth a small fortune. Every ride into every village saw him leaving with more food and supplies than he’d ridden in with, things unasked for and given to him freely. It was humbling, and it took a great burden off of his shoulders. But he never took for granted that the gifts might one day stop. So he worked as hard as he could to provide for the people and to protect them against threats that the new  _ samurai  _ wouldn’t.

Yuna had been by Jin’s side for all of it. He hadn’t asked for that either, but it was the one thing he was most thankful for. He could hunt his own food if he needed to. He could steal supplies from lords in the night. But he couldn’t provide himself with the companionship Yuna gave him. She had been there for him when no one else had, not even his own family. She’d held him in the night when he had dreams that left him shaking and she never thought less of him for it. She’d saved his life more times than he could count. She called him out when he was being stupid and made sure he took care of himself in addition to caring for everyone around him. Yuna’s presence was a gift from the  _ kami  _ and Jin made sure to thank them every day that they’d chosen to let him fall into her hands after Komoda Beach all those years ago.

He’d asked her one night while they were deep into a cask of  _ sake  _ why she stayed with him after all these years. There was a price on her head as well as his, but if she left Jin on Tsushima, the  _ shogun  _ and his men would leave her be. He was the real target. She didn’t have to keep putting herself into danger for his sake. It had almost caused a fight. She had become very annoyed with him and told him that she was her own woman who could make her own choices, and that if she wanted to stay with a bastard like Jin, he couldn't stop her. 

_ She loves you, you fool, _ he’d realized that night.  _ As much as you love her. _

After that night, he never questioned her decision again. He would not cast aspersions on her judgment, nor would he drive her away from him because of his need to feel like a martyr. Yuna could make her own decisions and he would have her as long as she would have him.

It was in the third year after the defeat of the Mongol forces when Ishikawa of all people confronted him about it. 

“You’re not getting any younger,” he said gruffly. “And Yuna’s a fine woman. Not  _ samurai _ , but neither are you anymore.”

Jin nearly dropped his bow in shock. Ishikawa (long rumored to be a woman-hater) had never married himself. In fact, he seemed to think that the petty squabbles of romance were beneath him. He was the last person Jin expected to broach the topic.

“I cannot marry,” Jin said. “What kind of life would I have to offer?”

“Don’t be an idiot, Sakai,” the old  _ samurai  _ replied. “She knows she isn’t going to be a  _ samurai  _ wife with an estate and a brood of children to run after. She seems perfectly content with the life you have now.”

And it was true. Yuna never once complained about constantly being on the run. In fact, she frequently joked that she was better fed now as a fugitive than she had been before she got wrapped up in  _ samurai  _ politics. She had a roof to sleep under, a full belly, and a man to warm her  _ futon  _ at night. She told Jin she didn’t need much more than that.

“She’s never expressed any interest,” Jin said, trying to ignore the heat blooming in his cheeks.

“Maybe not to you,” Ishikawa replied.

“She’s mentioned a desire to marry?”

“Not to me either,” Ishikawa said. “I doubt she’ll have said anything to anyone. But I watch the two of you when you’re here training. I see the way you look at each other. You used to make the same eyes at that wild friend of yours when you were boys. You weren’t discreet then and you aren’t discreet now.”

Jin wanted to sink into the earth.

“But you’re too old for that nonsense,” Ishikawa continued. “And frankly, it’s annoying to watch. Stop hesitating and take your shot.”

He’d waited another two years before doing anything. He was more careful now, taking the time to watch and wait before rushing into things. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right.

The full moon hung low in the sky, filling the night around them with a warm yellow glow. It was nearing the end of summer and the fireflies danced around them as they rode toward Old Yarikawa. Yuna was in high spirits as she raced him to the Garden of the Gods and Jin grinned in the dark as he chased after her. 

They dismounted, Yuna leading Naoki and Kaze off to graze as Jin spread an old cloak on the ground. Yuna came back as he knelt before the triple-headed Buddha and said a silent prayer. Yuna knelt beside him, imitating his posture.

“I haven’t prayed in forever,” she whispered. “Not since I was a child. I don’t remember how.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” he replied. “Just be present. The  _ kami  _ will feel it and the Buddha will know what’s in your heart.”

Jin was silent, reflecting on the events of his life that led him to this moment. As a boy, he had his whole life ahead of him, planned out from the moment of his birth. And now he was drifting rudderless, not ever sure if he would wake up the next morning. But he wasn’t alone. He hadn’t been alone for quite some time.

“Why did we come here, Jin?” Yuna asked. 

Jin opened his eyes. In the moonlight, with the fireflies dancing around her, Yuna looked ethereal. 

“Yuna,” he began. “I owe you my life ten times over. I’ll never be able to repay you for that.”

She remained silent, eyes searching his face cautiously. Jin reached over and took one of her hands in his own. It was smaller than his, but just as calloused and rough. He brought it to his lips and pressed a kiss into her fingertips.

“I wish I could give you more,” he said. “You deserve a better life than the one we have. I would give you a grand estate, fine silks to wear, the best food to eat, and hundreds of servants at your disposal if I could. But all I can give you is this.”

He gestured to the open air around them. The horses whinnied in the distance as they grazed. An owl called out overhead as it swooped by. And the fireflies danced on.

“I don’t want anything else,” Yuna said. “Just you.”

Jin smiled and lowered his eyes to the hand he held.

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said. “I don’t know how many years we’ll have left, but I don’t want to waste them. We’ve wasted so many already.”

He dropped her hands and reached for a parcel he had slung from his  _ obi _ . He unwrapped it, revealing a chipped set of sake cups, a small  _ tokkuri _ , and one rice ball wrapped in a bamboo leaf.

“Traditionally, the sake should be warmed,” he said. “And there should be more than a rice ball, but it’s all we had.”

“Jin,” Yuna began. 

He looked up and saw her eyes sparkling. She looked like she wanted to say something, but the words were caught in her throat.

“Let’s eat,” she finally said. 

They passed the rice ball between them, taking a bite each until there was nothing left. Then Jin poured sake for her and she poured for him. They drank together until the  _ tokkuri _ was empty. Then, Jin and Yuna lay down on the cloak. They undressed each other slowly and made love under the watchful eyes of the gods. When they were finished, they lay together letting the moon bathe over their naked bodies.

“You didn’t have to do all this,” Yuna said softly. “But I’m glad you did.”

“I know I didn’t have to,” Jin said. “But I wanted to. It won’t mean much to anyone else, but it means something to me.”

“I never thought I’d have a  _ samurai  _ for a husband,” Yuna mused. “Even an ex- _ samurai _ .”

“Nor I, a thief wife,” Jin said. “But here we are.”

“Yes,” Yuna said, tracing circles on his chest with her fingers. She sounded happier than she’d been in a long while. “Here we are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, thanks for sticking around all month for this! It was a joy to write and I hope you guys had fun reading it too! <3


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